THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE MYSTERY - -SOLVED

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Lawrence David l(usche

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Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following: The New York Times. Copyright 1921, 1925, 1926, 1935, 1944, 1951, 1952, 1953. 1954, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1969 by the New York Times Company. Reprinted by per... .. mission, The Miami Herald: The Virginian-Pilot: The Galveston Daily News: The San Juan Star; The Times-Picayune; The Arizona Republic and The Washington Post Service; The Times (London); The Yomiuri Shimbun (Tokyo). All reprinted by permission. The United States Naval Institute, Proceedings, January 1920, Apri11920, September 1923, July 1969. Dictionary of Disasters at Sea During the Age 0/ Steam by Charles Hocking, London: Lloyd's Register of Shipping, 1969. Lloyd's Register, Wreck Returns. 1900-1904; 1925-1926. Lloyd's Register of Shipping. lloyd's Weekly Casualty Reports December 18) 1925; October to December. 1955; July 9, 1963. Lloyd's. Lloyd's List. September 2S~ 1840; October 17, 1840; April 24, 1950; May 2, 19S0; June 3s 1950. Lloyd's. ' ~

...

Designed by Sidney Feinberg Maps drawn by Lawrence David Kusche

First published in Great Britain by New English Library Ltd., 1975 Copyright © by Lawrence David Kusche, 1975

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FlRST NEL PAPERBACK EDmON NOVEMBER
This new edition February 1978 Reprinted October 1978

1975

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Conditions of sale: This book is sold subject to the condition that it shalt not, by way of trade or otherwise, be Jent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. NEL Books are published by New English Library Limited from Barnard's Inn, Holborn, London, ECIN 2JR Made and printed in Great Britain by Hunt Barnard Printing Ltd., Aylesbury, Bucks. 45003835 1

To the members 0/ the Interlibrary Loan department at Arizona State University and their unseen partners in other libraries.

Contents

Preface Acknowledgements 1. The Legend of the Bermuda Triangle as it is usually told 2. 1492: Christopher Co1umbus, the Sargasso Sea, and the Bermuda Triangle 3. August 1840: Rosalie 4. April 1854: Bella 5. December 1872: Mary Celeste 6. Winter 1880: Atalanta 7. 1881: Ellen Austin and the Derelict 8. 1866: Lotta 1868: Viego 1884: Miramon 9. October 1902: Freya 10. November 1909: Joshua Slocum and the Spray 11. March 1918: Cyclops 12. January 1921: Carroll A. Deering 13. April 1925: Raifuku Maru 14. December 1925: Cotopaxi 15. March 1926: Suduffco 16. October 1931: Stavenger 17. Apri11932: John and Mary 18. August 1935: La Dahama 19. February 1940; Gloria Co/ita 20. November, December 1941: Proteus, Nereus 21. October 1944: Rubicon · 22. December 1945: Flight 19

9 13
17

30

35 38
41

45
52

54
55

58
60 69

77 79
81
82 84 86 90

94 96
98

23. December 1946: City Belle 24. 1947: Superfortress 25. January 1948: Star Tiger 26. March 1948: AI Snider 27. December 1948: DC-3 28. January 1949: Star Ariel 29. March 1950: Globemaster 30. June 1950: Sandra 31. February 1953: British York Transport 32. October 1954: Navy Super Constellation 33. Decem ber 1954: Southern Districts 34. September 1955: Connemara IV 35. November 1956: Navy Patrol Bomber 36. January 1958: Revonoc 37. January 1962: KB-50 38. April 1962: Piper Apache 39. February 1963: Marine Sulphur Queen· 40. July 1963: SIW' Boy 41. August 1963: Two KC-13Ss 42. June 1965: C..119 Flying Boxcar 43. January 1967: Black Week 44. December 1967: Witchcraft 45. May 1968: Scorpion 46. July 1969: Five Abandoned Vessels 47. August 1969: Bill Verity 48. November 1970: Jillie Bean and the Piper Comanche 49. April 1971: Elizabeth SO. October 1971: El. Caribe . 51. February 1972: V. A. Fogg 52. March 1973: Norse Variant and Anita 53. October 1973: Linda 54. The Devil's Sea 55. V ile Vortices 56. Magnetism, Mystery, and the Bermuda Triangle Epilogue

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122 123 135 136 144 149 152 155 157

159 163 165

168 170 173 174 184 187 193 196

200
203

207

212 213
216

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221 226

228 231 240 244

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Preface

Strange events seem to be taking place in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the United States .. In and around an area formed by an imaginary line connecting Bermuda, Florida, and Puerto Rico, a significant number of ships and planes have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Known popularly as the Bermuda Triangle, the Devil's Triangle, and Limbo of the Lost, the area has also been called the Hoodoo Sea, the Twilight Zone, and the Port of Missing Ships. Mysterious occurrences continue to be reported there, and the sequence of events has grown into a modern-day sea mystery. The Bermuda Triangle has received much attention in the last decade. It has been the subject of books, magazine articles, and radio and television talk shows. A television special was devoted to it, and it aJso figures in the UFO and ancient astronaut mysteries. According to all accounts, there is something very strange going
on out there.

help someone find information on the subject. Nothing seemed to exist. A new reference librarian at ASU, Deborah Blouin, had previously experienced the same frustration of being unable to locate anything, so we combined forces and spent several months advertising in journals and writing letters to various government agencies, research organizations, and libraries along the east coast to see if anyone could suggest any sources. Some of those we contacted sent a citation or two and we eventually compiled a fairly lengthy bibliography which we made available to anyone who needed it. The demand was overwhelming. Nobody, it seemed, had

My interest in the Triangle began in 1972 when, as a reference librarian at Arizona State University, 1 was frequently asked to

been able to find much on the Bermuda Triangle. The problem was 9

that although several dozen articles and book chapters existed they were not the type of material that could be found when they were needed by consulting card catalogs or periodical indexes. After reading all the chapters and articles I realized that the Bermuda Triangle mystery was much more than just an account of the strange disappearance of a large number of vessels. Proclamations of the Navy, the Coast Guard, the Air Force, and Lloyd's (London) had been repeated, interpreted, and assimilated into the story. Many writers who had made the earlier attempts to solve the mystery later found themselves and their theories an integral part of it. New incidents were continually being incorporated into the tale. These writings, then, taken together, constitute what might be cal led the story, or the legend, of the Bermuda TriangJe as it is usually told. The most important of these are listed in Section I of the bibliography. I decided to investigate the mystery further; to collect a11the information that could be found on each incident, to see if there might not be an answer here and there. The sources I discovered are listed by incident in Section II of the bibliography. I have adopted a somewhat unusual forrnat to present the results of my research. First I retell the entire legend of the Bermuda Triangle (in italic typeface), to give the facts and flavor of the story as it has developed over the years. Then I examine individual incidents in chronological order. For each I give a detailed account of the episode as it usually has been told. Next come pertinent extracts from the various sources that I found during my research. My own comments, assumptions, opinions, and deductions either follow or are interspersed with the quoted material. The purpose of this arrangement is to Jet the reader know the origin of the jnformation he is given and thus permit him to draw his own conclusions about whether a particular incident is mysterious or whether it appears to have a logical solution. In a few cases the information is inconclusive and a decision cannot be made. The word Legend, capitalized, has been used throughout as an abbreviated way of saying 'This is how this incident has usually been told as a part of the story of the Bermuda Triangle.' It was almost always possible to do this because most versions of any particular incident were similar. There are a few cases, however, for which it is not possible to say 'This is how it has usualJy been told,' because there is considerable difference between versions. For these incidents I have told what appeared to be the best-known account.
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Because the Legend is a composite of many sources, no individual is cited for his particular contribution except where a part indisputably 'belongs' to a given writer. To have attempted to show who contributed each part of the story would have required
a different kind of book. My concern here is with the incidents themselves, not with those who have publicized them. Repetitious and extraneous material has been omitted from quoted matter to spare the reader tiresome duplication of facts in news accounts and details in reports such as the thickness of bulkheads and the serial numbers of planes and servicemen. In a few official reports the time of day has been converted from the military twenty-four-hour clock to Eastern Standard Time, and directions and positions have been simplified or explained. In many cases the facts given in the quoted material differ from those in the Legend. It is left to the reader to decide for himself which version is more likely to be true. May 1974 Tempe, Arizona

L. D. K.

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Acknowledgments

The research for this book was done in widely scattered locations around the world - Tokyo, Oslo, Paris, London, St John's, Nassau, San Juan, Santo Domingo, Washington, D.C .. Norfolk, , New York, Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, and Galveston. I traveled to al1 these faraway places by airmail, teletype, or telephone. Thanks to the cooperation of many librarians, newspapermen, and members of the military I was able to obtain the many sources of information that I requested. I especially want to thank Lyn Ashley, Virginia Brown, Joyce Casagrande, Jewel Hayden, and Lois Schneberger of the Inter .. library Loan Department, Arizona State University, Tempe, for their efforts in fulfilling my many requests for microfilm, books, and photocopies of sources heJd by other libraries. Many others at ASU were also helpful: Deborah Blouin, my partner on the Bermuda Triangle Bibliography; Debbie Engelmann, whose honest evaluation of my first attempts sent me back to the writing desk; Shirley Cooper, Doohe Chang, Barbara Cox, Kay Gilman, George Ilinsky, Donna Larson, Jim Lestikow, Greg Middleton, and Gene Price, who an lent their special skills. Larry Young of Sawyer School of Aviation, and Ron Dobbins and Don Bruce also provided a great deal of help. . I am indebted to the following people for taking the time to answer my questions and to search for the material I requested: Commander F. A. Rice, Lt Arthur Whiting, and Lt Richard Tate of the Casualty Review Branch, U.S. Coast Guard, Washington, D.C., Lt G. F. Johnson, PubHc Information Office, Seventh District, U.S. Coast Guard, Miami. · D. Gail Saunders, Archivist of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Nassau, Bahamas. T. M. Dinan, Head of Casualty

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Records and Historical Research, Lloyd"s. Shigeru Kimura of the Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo. 'Action Line' of the Mainichi Daily News, Tokyo. Yasuchika Ohno, Maritime Safety Agency, Tokyo ..Dean D. Hawes, Norfolk. Barbara Case and Helen Porter, Newfoundland Arts and Culture Center, St John's. William Felker, Free Library of Philadelphia. Else Marie Thorstvedt, Librarian, Norwegian Maritime Museum. H. Vinje, Office of the Director General of Shipping and Navigation, Oslo. John A. Shelton, National Climatic Center, Ashville, North Carolina. James N. Eastman, Jr., Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. Richard F. Gerwig, Norton Air Force Base, California. Federico A. Mella Villanueva, El Caribe, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Joel Kirkpatrick, Galveston Daily News. Lt A. Solano, Sheriff's Department, Galveston. D. A. F. Ingraham, Department of Civil Aviation, Bahamas. Samuel L. Morison, Washington, D.C .. Special thanks go to my wife Sally, and the kids, Rebecca and Andrew; and most of all, to Jeanne Flagg, editor, Harper &_ Row.

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'The fact is, we have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles us altogether.' 'Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing that puts you at fault,' said my friend. 'What nonsense you 00 talk!' replied the Prefect, laughing heartily. . 'Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain,' said Dupin. 'Oh, good heavens! whoever heard of such an idea l' 'A little too self evident.' 'Ha! hal hal - hat ha! hal ~ ho! ho! hot' ~ roared our visitor, profoundly amused, 'oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!' -- 'The Purloined Letter' Edgar Allan Poe
...

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cuv~ ~Mur . CENTRAL STREET BASSETERRE ST. KfITS

t.lcr I.

The Legend oj the Bermuda Triangle As It Is Usually Told

The night was ablaze with stars as the DC ..3, pushed along by a friendly tailwind, began a gentle descent toward Miami. A slight lowering ofthe nose increased the airspeed a few knots, and the altimeter slowly began to unwind. In the cabin the passengers, on their way home after a Christmas vacation in their native Puerto Rico, sang' We Three Kings' as the stewardess served cookies and

punch. In the cockpit the captain reached for his microphone. 'Miami Tower, this is Airborne Transport N16002, over.' 'Airborne Transport N16002, this is Miami Tower, go ahead.' 'N 16002 is approaching Miami from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Am

now fifty miles south, all's well, have the city in sight. Landing

'Zero zero two, this is Miami Tower. Please acknowledge. Over. 'Zero zero two, do you read? Over. 'Airborne Transport N16002, this is Miami Tower. Do you read? Do you read? Please acknowledge. Over.' But N16002 never acknowledged the call/rom Miami Tower on that early morning of December 30, 1948., nor did it answer repeated calls from New Orleans and San Juan Overseas Radio, and from the Coast Guard. A massive search began almost immediately. Hundreds ofships combed the sea, while planes scanned the area from above. The weather was ideal, the water clear and calm and so shallow in the area that large objects on the bottom could easily be seen. But the sea guards her secrets well; no trace of the DC-3 was everfound. In the carefully phrased accident report of the Civil Aeronautics Board, issued six months later, 'sufficient in/ormation is Jacking in this case to determine the probable cause.'

airport in sight.

instructions, please. Over.' 'Zero zero twot continue your approach, advise when you have the

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seas and the skies, the pattern 0.( the disappearances could be seen. The menace that haunts the Bermuda Triangle had struck again, claiming yet another victim. Those who knew anything QI the sea knew about the terrifying mid-Atlantic region where ships (and now planes) had been vanishing for more than a century, vanishing without reason, in good weather, without sending cries ofdistress and without leaving a trace. Veteran observers 0/ the area knew about the British South American Airways airliner, the Star Tiger, that had vanished in January of the same year while approaching Bermuda "from the Azores. Just as the DC-3 seemed destined to do a few months later, the Star Tiger sent an 'all's well' message when nearing the end ofa long, routine journey, then lapsed into silence. At the conclusion 0/ the Star Tiger investigation, the Ministry of Civil Aviation stated that it had never encountered a more baffling problem. Because ofthe lack 0/ evidence supporting any other theory, the Ministry suggested that the mishap had occurred because of 'some external cause'. A Jew weeks after the loss ofthe DC ... the Star Ariel, sister ship 3 of the Star Tiger, disappeared between Bermuda and Jamaica on a flight in calm, clear weather. The word spread quickly. It was time to break the jinx, to find out what was causing all the disappearances. A search such as never be/ore seen, made possible by the fortuitous presence of a large U.S. Navy task force and a number of' British ships and planes, spared no effort in the recovery attempt. But once again it lvas all in vain, lor the Star Ariel had alsoflown into oblivion in the Bermuda Triangle. A line drawn on a map from Bermuda to Puerto Rico to Florida and back to Bermuda outlines thecenter oj this area and gives it its name. Some of the disappearances have taken place outside the center triangle, and when they are all plotted on a map the triangle is expanded and distorted into almost a square or a kite shape. This is the sinister no-man's-land that is said to be creating such fear in the hearts of sailors and pilots that they refuse to discuss it with outsiders. Surrounded by the vacation lands of Bermuda, the Bahamas, and Florida, patrolled by the U.s. government and heavily traveled
day and night, the region is in no way isolated. Although many vessels, both civilian and military, cross it daily without mishap, the number of disappearances is altogether beyond the laws of chance

But, on the docks, in the airports, on the beaches, and in the taverns, wherever the old-timers met to discuss the mysteries of the

for such a relatively limited area. On the afternoon 0/ December 5, 1945, the strangest aviation

drama of all time began as five Navy Avenger torpedo bombers took offfrom the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station on a short routine patrol that was to end in confusion, tragedy, mystery, and the apparent deaths 0/ twenty-seven men. Although there was no

The Bermuda Triangle

evidence ofbad weather, the flight leader radioed that allfive planes were lost and unable to tell in which direction they were flying. A short time later communications faded out, never to be resumed. A rescue plane immediately headed for the supposed area 0/ the lost
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patrol, and it, too, vanished. The greatest search ill aviation history lasted lor five days, hut no trace of the six aircraft was ever found. The Navy, after a lengthy investigation, admitted that it was more confused than before the inquest had begun. Authorities could only scratch their heads and wonder what if was that continued to strike again and again in the Bermuda Triangle. One Navy officer commented that' They vanished as completely as if they' dflown to Mars.' Many other incidents occurred in the 1940s. The City Belle was found abandoned near the Bahamas in 1946, and the Rubicon, a ghost ship, drifted near the coast of Florida in October 1944, in excellent condition, but with only a dog aboard. AI Snider, an internationally famous jockey, vanished in March 1948 while 011 an afternoon fishing trip near the southern lip of Florida. In 1940 the Gloria Colita wasfound abandoned, but in excellent condition, near the western coast ofFlorida, in the Gulf of Mexico. Going back farther, the La Dahama was sighted in the Bermuda Triangle in 1935, several days after another ship had reported watch ... ing it sink. In 1931 the Norwegian ship Stavenger disappeared in the Bahamas with forty-three men aboard, and the Raifuku Maru vanished on a calm day in 1925 after sending the message 'Come quick, it's like a dagger! We cannot escape ' The Carroll A. Deering was discovered hard aground on Diamond Shoals in January 1921 with all sails set. Two cats were the only living creatures aboard. The strangest part of the incident is that a full meal was on the stove, waiting for a crew that would never arrive. The same year a dozen other ships vanished in the area. They left their ports on normal, routine voyages and all sailed the same ghostly path .. Although their destinations were officially listed as Bermuda, Jamaica, Miami, and other such locations, they all arrived instead at the Port ofMissing Ships. In 1918 the U.S. Navy, one of the favorite targets of the jinx, suffered a major loss. The Cyclops, a 542-/00( collier, sailedfrom Barbados lor Baltimore with 309 men on board and was never seen or heard/rom again, despite a frantic search effort, It was the first radio-equipped ship ever to vanish, but it sent 110 SOS. After haIJ'Q century the Navy admits that although many theories have been suggested, none satisfactorily accounts for the loss of the Cyclops. Compounding the mystery still further, two of her sister ships, the Proteus and the Nereus, disappeared in 1941 on almost the identical rou te. The victims have not always been nameless and faceless. In 1909 Joshua Slocum, at that time the world's best-known sailor, vanished while crossing the Triangle. Eleven years be/ore he had gained endur20

the Spray sailed south from Massachusetts one day and never emerged/rom the Bermuda Triangle. Those who knew him and the Spray did not consider it likely that the two were victims 0/ any normal hazard ofthe sea. The infamous history ofthe Bermuda Triangle extends far back into the last century, into the century be/ore that, and then even Jar ther, back to the first known traveler in the area, Christopher Columbus. Columbus sailed through the Sargasso Sea, another legendary twilight zone, and the Bermuda Triangle on hisfirst voyage to the New World in 1492. His men were spooked by the strangeness of the Sargasso and unnerved by events as they crossed the Triangle a bolt offire thatfell into the sea, unusual actions ofthe compass, and a strange light that appeared in the distance late one night. Although records are scattered and incomplete, it is documented that four American naval vessels vanished without explanation between 1781 and 1812. In 1840 the Rosalie, a large French ship, was found deserted near Nassau, sails set, a valuable cargo intact, and everything in order. The Bella, a mystery derelict, wasfound in 1854. The Lotta, a Swedish bark, vanished near Haiti in 1866, followed two years later by the Viego, a Spanish merchantman. One ofthe greatest mysteries of the sea is the strange disappearance of' the Atalanta in 1880. She left Bermuda in January for England with a crew ofthree hundred cadets and officers and was . never seen again. Despite a massive sweep by a large armada 0/ ships sailing swaths across the ocean within sight of each other, not a scrap, a spar, or a lifeboat/rom the Atalanta was ever found. The chain continued unbroken in 1884 when the Miramon, an Italian schooner bound for New Orleans, glided silently into limbo. When the Freya, a German bark, was discovered abandoned in 1902, there lvas some speculation that an earthquake might have been the
'II

ing fame by being the first man to sail alone around the world. He and

weather conditions, no mechanical problems, routine radio reports, and then silence. So rarely is anything found ill the vast, intensive search that follows that it comes as a surprise when any debris is recovered or a message is received.. · One of these exceptions occurred in February 1953, when a Jamaica-bound British York transport sent an SOS while north 0/
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cause. The lurking menace of death should have been satisfied after all the victims it had claimed, especially the three airliners and the flight of planes in the 1940s, but airplanes and ships have continued to disappear liP to the present day. The story is a/ways the same," good

the Triangle. After the message ended abruptly without explanation a search was launched, but nothing was found. A London court later reported, 'Cause unascertainable.' " In March 1950 an American Globemaster vanished north of the Triangle and lvas followed several months later by the freighter Sandra. It vanished one calm, tropical night with a load 0.( inIncidents continued unabated: a Navy Super Constellation in 1954; the sulfur-laden Southern Districts in the Straits ofFlorida in the same year; the Connemara IV, fo1111d derelict in the very center of the Triangle in 1955. In 1956, as if making up for a slow year, the
jinx claimed a number of victims, including a Marine Sky Raider and a Navy patrol bomber with a crew 0/ ten. An unusually high number of vanishments have occurred near Christmas, and experts have not yet discovered why the Triangle is secticide.

especially ominous at that particular time of year. In December 1957 publisher Harvey Conover, one of America's best-known yachtsmen, and several relatives, left Key West on the 150..mile trip to Miami in his racing yawl, the Revonoc. Although their intended path would have always kept them in sight ofland, they vanished forever. Meanwhile, planes were not being ignored. In 1962 an Air Force KB ... rolled down the runway at Langley AFB, Virginia, and 50 headed/or the Azores with a crew ofnine. Shortly after takeoffthe tower received a brief, weak radio message that the tanker was in some sort of trouble. An extensive search once again produced no trace of any kind. The U.S. Navy has lost two nuclear submarines, the Thresher in 1963 and the Scorpion in 1968. Both ended their final voyages near the Triangle .. 1963 was a big year for the jinx. It started with the Marine Sulphur Queen, a cargo ship specially refitted to carry molten sulfur. Bound/or Virginiafrom Texas, it vanished off the tip ofFlorida after sending a routine radio message. With the exception 0/ several life Jackets, nothing from the vessel was found. The loss was highly publicized, as was the Coast Guard inquiry into the matter. Although a number of possible solutions have been suggested, no one alive knows what really happened. One of the most baffling aspects of the disappearances has always been the failure 0/ searchers to find bodies. It would generally be expected that one or more would be washed ashore after a shipwreck, but this has never happened in the Bermuda Triangle. Since most of the incidents have occurred within sight of land, the absence
of bodies is especially puzzling.

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In July 1963 the Navy and the Coast Guard searchedfor ten days withoutfinding a trace 0/ the Sno' Boy, a 63-/00t fishing boat lost on an 80-mile trip from Jamaica .. A month later two KC-J35s were caught in a sky trap with eleven crewmen. At noon they radioed their position, then were never heard/rom again. When debris was located near Bermuda it was assumed that there had been a midair collision. But the finding of debris 160 miles away created a mystery. If there had been a midair collision, why were there two areas of"debris? If the planes had not collided, why did they crash simultaneously? There is no satisfactory answer, and Air Force officials are still scratching their heads over the affair. Puzzling disappearances continued. In 1965 an Air Force C-119 vanished while on a flight in good weather from Homestead AFB to Grand Turk Island. A strange, garbled message was received by the Grand Turk tower operator iust about the time the plane should have been touching down. What desperate, last ... minute in/ormation was the pilot attempting to relate before he crossed over into oblivion? There is speculation that one ofthe UFOs sighted by Gemini IV may have played a part in the loss. In 1967 a number of vessels took one-way trips into the Bermuda Triangle. The year started when a Chase YC-122 cargo plane vanished into thin air on the60-milellight from Fort Lauderdale to the Biminis. The plane was carrying motion picture equipment for a Lloyd Bridges movie entitled, ironically, The Unkillables. The year ended with the loss oftwo Floridamen who had gone on a short boat ride to view the Christmas lights ofMiami Beach/rom a mile out at sea. The Coast Guard received a call that the men were unable to run the engine because of' a bent propeller, but that there was no danger of any kind; they simply would like a tow back to port. Nineteen minutes later the Coast Guard arrived at the location given by the men but found nothing of the boat that lived up to its name - the
Witchcraft. In July 1969 five abandoned vessels were found during calm weather in the same general area. A Lloyd's spokesman exclaimed

that this was 'most unusual', especially considering the excellent weather. The next month Bill Verity, an experienced transatlantic voyager, vanished in the Triangle. Unexplained incidents are still occurring: the freighters Elizabeth and Caribe vanished in 1971; and in March 1973 the Ani ta, the largest cargo ship ever lost without a trace, sailed/rom Norfolk and was never heard from again .. Officially, the Navy, Coast Guard, and the Air Force deny the

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existence of strange forces in the area. Unofficiallyit is a differen story. They admit that they are baffled, and that the few clues they do have only increase the mystery. A spokesman for the Navy said, 'It looks almost like they [the missing vessels] have been covered by some gigantic electronic camouflage net. We know there's something strange going on out there, we've always known it, but there doesn't seem to be any reason for it all. We don't sneer at it a bit around here.' For those who remain skeptical of the mysterious pattern, the record of disappearances is available for anyone to check. It takes only a few minutes. Pilots avoid discussing the vanished planes with outsiders, and only reluctantly discuss them with each other. Crashes, although a touchy subject, are at least something that can be analyzed, something for which a cause can usually be found. Disappearances are another matter. It is possible for an airplane or a ship to go down occasionally without leaving a trace. It's possible but not very likely. There is almost always something, some debris or oil slick, to mark the spot. Pilots have no control over the situation, but can only continue to fly, hoping that their plane will not he the next victim. Despite their basic skepticism of unknown forces, pilots have en.countered many strange phenomena. Compasses spinning wildly, severe turbulence during excellent weather, crooked radio beams, misbehaving gyroscopes, glowing windshields and instrument panels, and many, even stranger anomalies have been authenticated. During the last century and a half more than forty ships and twenty airplanes have carried almost a thousand beings" into this misty limbo ofthe lost. Until the late 1940s each incident was merely a baffling individual event. But then the pattern became obvious: too many vessels were vanishing under similar circumstances in such a small patch ofocean. Investigators were not easily convinced - it was a long time he/ore they conceded that something might be amiss with the area itself: Aviation and marine experts now strongly suspect that some phenomenon of the region, rather than a series of' coincidental' mishaps as the Navy suggests, may be responsible. Accident investigators have ruled out the usual hazards such as sudden tropical storms,' they do strongly suspect, however, that atmospheric aberrations and electromagnetic gravitational disturbances may be responsible. Some such force may have affected the compasses and silenced the radios of the five Avengers, then incapacitated the Mariner rescue plane when it entered the same zone. This incident, particularly the pilots' description of a strange sea and the inability to see the sun, as told in the Navy report, suggests

* An

estimate only, as bodies have never been found.

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some kind of atmospheric aberration, or 'hole in the sky', an area, as yet unknown, that planes can enter but cannot leave. Many experienced pi lots and sailors feel that the aberration theory is the only one that could account for events such as these - events that occur only occasionally, always without warning, often enough to be alarming, but irregularly, so that they cannot be predicted. Exactly what this aberration is and why it appears to be restricted to tropical waters such as in the Bermuda Triangle is not known at this time. Some think the aberration may be a space warp, and that the Inissing vessels may have been entrapped in the fourth dimension. One prophet has predicted that one day the space warp will free all the vessels and they will return to their home ports with the skeletons of the crelVS. Another speculates that the crews may be alive, the same age as when they left, and will be able to reveal the secret ofwhat lies beyond the shadowy edge of the Bermuda Triangle. Perhaps time runs at a variable rate rather than at a constant rate as has always been thought. Ifso, this would account jor the many cases ofships and planes suddenly finding themselves hundreds of miles from where they were supposed to be (or no logical reason. If' the timeflow varied enough/rom the standard rate, a vessel caught in such a trap might simply cease to exist in this world. Another possiblity is that time does not always move in a straight line, but that parts 0/ it occasionally break off and head away from the main flow, carrying with them whatever might happen to be in the area at the time. These vessels and their unfortunate occupants would be transported to the future or the past, or might be trapped in a parallel
universe.
..

Some scientists feel that seaquakes, sudden shiftings ofthe ocean floor capable of causing waves up to 200 feet high, may be the most logical answer .. Such waves could easily swallow a ship and would account for the absence of SOS's and ofdebris. While the Navy and other experts dismiss the possibility that underwater volcanic activity and seaquakes are the cause ofthe losses, a number ofscientists think that freak seas might be involved. Waves of 100 feet and more have been verified, and such a gigantic wall could easily roll even a medium-sized ship be/ore it could send an SOS. Although not much is known about what causes such waves, it is suspected that powerful ocean currents or waterspouts may be factors. The flaw in this theory is that it takes a storm of some magnitude to produce a freak sea, and in none of the disappearances in the Triangle could the weather be called bad. Moreover.freak seas could not be responsible for the disappearances 0/planes. To account
..

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for plane losses, gigantic, invisible atmospheric waves not unlike

...

those ofthe ocean have been postulated. Aircraft occasionally encounter turbulence, not only in and near cumulonimbus clouds, but also in clear air. Extreme turbulence can actually disintegrate an aircraft, and may be the cause of some of the vanishments. Under careful examination, however, this theory also does not stand up. First, the weather was good when most of' the disappearances occured, and second, an aircraft that disintegrates leaves debris over a wide area. Although most theories jail to account for more than a few of the incidents, there is one that does appear to make sense - that 0/ magnetic anomalies. Compass variation is a phenomenon known even to the tyro pilot and sailor. The compass rarely points to true north, the north pole; it points instead to the magnetic pole, which is some distance away. In many places the variation is a significant factor that must be taken into account; ifit is not, a vessel may well end up hundreds of miles from where it is supposed to be. There are two places on the earth's surface where the compass does point to true north - the Bermuda Triangle and an area off the coast ofJapan known as the Devil's Sea, which also has a high rate of disappearances. Between 1950 and 1954 at least nine ships vanished in the Devil's Sea. These were large freighters with powerful engines and radios, /lot merely small fishing boats. Only one was able to send an SOS. Extensive searchesfound a few small pieces of debris, but no survivors, bodies, or lifeboats. Alarmed, the Japanese government began a survey of the area. but all that was found "'as a new volcano. The eruption sank one of the research ships! The Japan .. ese government then officially proclaimed the area 10 be a danger The U.S. Navy, in a classified operation known as Project Magnet, has been conducting an extensive geomagnetic survey, bringing up to date many measurements more than thirty years old. It is believed that the project maya/so be performing other junctions, including listening for messages from outer space and investigating the theory 0.(' reduced binding' .. Wilbur B .. Smith, an electronics expert who was in charge of a 1950 study of magnetism and gravity made by the Canadian govern ... ment, detected regions in the atmosphere where what he called 1,000 feet in diameter and extended to an unknown altitude; they either moved or faded away, only to reappear at another location. Smith found that 'reduced binding' .fie Ids were often present where unexplained crashes had occurred. He theorized that while most
26

zone.

'reduced binding' existed. These regions, he reported, were about

planes would probably not be affected, others ot a specific design and size might sustain enough of the force to be destroyed. It is possible that these forces not only affect aircraft and their compasses and

radios, but also interfere with the human senses, causing vertigo and
loss 0/ spatial orientation.

Evidence has been presented that the Bermuda Triangle is merely a part ofa larger problem region ..This area, known as the Limbo oj

'-

-. . ""

The Limbo of the Lost

the Lost, includes the continental shelf north to New Jersey, the Gu(1 ofMexico, and the Atlantic Ocean east to the Azores. Other researchers have discovered that lite Bermuda Triangle and the Devil's Sea are only two of a number of anomalic areas spread across the globe. Mathematicians and engineers have found twelve such zones, named' Vile Vortices 'for lack of' a better term. These vortices are alleged to occur at the north and south poles and at five locations in each hemisphere. They were found to be equidistant from

27

each other, and lines drawn on a globe from each vortex to those adjacent form a series of equilateral triangles. Scientists have not yet learned the significance 0/ this pattern. It was recently realized that the same geographic characteristics of the small sector of ocean known as the Bermuda Triangle that make it an ideal path for rocket launchings might also make it an ideal channel for landing approaches by vehicles from outer space. Perhaps a power source or signal device left in the area many centuries ago by a scouting party from another planet continues to send signals into space, showing the followers of the earlier explorers the best landing approach to this planet. The device might operate only occasionally, which would account jar the fact that most ships and planes that traverse the area do so without incident. When the device did activate, however, the powerful beams might well be strong enough to affect navigation instruments and the human mind, and possibly even completely destroy any vessel unlucky enough to be in the way. Such aforce could account for the many incidents that have occurred because of the apparent directional problems of the pilots, most notably in the case of the five Avenger bombers. Increasing evidence that past civilizations have possessed knowledge and accomplished feats far beyond what scientists previously thought possible supports the theory that earth was visited in ancient times by beings from outer space. It is considered unlikely that many oj' these achievements could have occurred without aid from an extremely advanced Intelligence. The Coast Guard claims that the many incidents in the Bermuda Triangle are merely coincidence and that' there is nothing mysterious about disappearances in this particular section of the ocean. Weather conditions, equipment failure and human error, not something from

This statement does apply to those inexperienced boatmen who venture out in craft never intended for use in the open sea. But what about Joshua Slocum, Harvey Conover, and the many other expert sailors who have vanished? What ofthe lost airliners, the Air Force jets, and the five Avengers? They were piloted by men who knew their business and how to handle the roughest 0/ conditions, yet they still vanished. The Coast Guard statement jails to account for the overwhelming majority of the disappearances. The Bermuda Triangle continues to baffle officials. New theories are tried and discarded almost as quickly as vessels disappear. The

the supernatural, are what have caused these tragedies.' Most of the mishaps, according to the Coast Guard, occur because 0/ the large number of people who brave the ocean in small boats while crossing to the Bahamas.

28

only link that seems to exist between the missing vessels is that they were all crowded into the same small geographic confines. All explanations/ail to explain why wreckage or bodies are never found and why the disappearances always occur during good weather. It may well be that man is not yet advanced to the point to be able to understand the forces that exist in the Bermuda Triangle.

29

1492
Christopher Columbus, the Sargasso Sea, and the Bermuda Triangle
Christopher Columbus, thefirst known traveler through the Sargasso Sea and the area now known as the Bermuda Triangle, gave it an air of mystery that has grown as the years have passed. In his logs are descriptions of the weed-filled sea and reports of an erratic compass, a great flame oftfire, and the appearance 0/ a strange light at sea. Each incident frightened an already jittery crew and was to them a warning to turn back. Word of the unusual events spread among sailors everywhere, and the region soon acquired a reputation for being strange; a reputation that continues to this day.
When the astronauts began their quarter-million-mile journey to the moon in ] 969 they had much more information about their intended voyage than Columbus had about his 3,OOO-mile trip in 1492. The astronauts were backed by thousands of technicians throughout the world, using the best computers and the best communications devised by man. They knew the exact time the journey would take and they were aware of and prepared for the many dangers they might encounter. When Co1umbus sailed from the Canary Islands with ninety men in three smaJl ships he had almost

no idea of what to expect. There were no charts to follow, no one to communicate with, no place to go for help, and no clue as to how long the trip would be or what dangers might be encountered. The Sargasso Sea, an area with less wind, rain, and clouds than the rest of the ocean, is in the central part of the North Atlantic Ocean, stretchmg from 30° to 70° west and from 20° to 35° north.* It is almost as large as the continental United States, more than 2;000 miles long and 1,000 miles wide, and is bounded on all sides

* The
30

North Atlantic Ocean extends south to the equator.

by currents which cause it to rotate slowly clockwise. Its name is derived from the Portuguese word for seaweed, sargaco. The first sail6rs to cross the Sea feared they would soon run aground, as the presence of great masses of seaweed normally indicates that land is near. However, the ocean is several miles deep throughout the area. Many unusual creatures inhabit the Sargasso, either as recent stowaways on material that has drifted

._.

............

.-

H OA-S
\

",.

.............--

'S a r

..

The Sargasso Sea

in, or as descendants of stowaways that have adapted to life on the weeds. The horse latitudes, a belt of calm weather between latitudes 30 and 35, add to the strangeness of the area. The air in this region is often so still that sailors have been known to read all night on deck by candle1ight, and sailing ships have been stranded there for months at a time. Though Columbus reported the weed accurately, those who

31

followed spread stories that inspired fear in all seamen. Sailors at that time were uneasy about traveling far from shore; they were not accustomed to being out of sight of land for extended periods • . The yellow, brown, and green seaweed crawling with strange creatures and extending as far as the eye could see was terrifying to those sailing through it. Stories quickly grew, especially after ships sat becalmed for long stretches in the horse latitudes. Soon it was not the lack of wind that stopped them, according to the tales, but the thick mats of weed that supposedly grew up the sides of the ship, up the ropes and chains, and held them fast under the hot sun until all aboard died of thirst or starvation and the ship became a rotted hull manned only by skeletons and prevented from sinking by the seaweed tentacles. Borer worms, which thrive in tropical waters, sometimes did tum the sides of a becalmed ship into a rotted mass. The little things that crept along the mats of weed were transformed in the stories into monsters and giant squid that could haul a ship down to the depths of the ocean. The rumor grew that crews often died an agonizing death because there was no air to breathe. ~ Once debris of any sort has drifted into the relatively calm center of the Sargasso Sea it usually remains until it sinks, moving in enormous circles as a captive of the rotating pool. Plants carried by the surrounding currents drift into the center, where many CODtinue to grow . It is suspected that much of the weed comes from the Gulf of Mexico, borne by the Gulf Stream, and from the Caribbean. Trees tom from riverbanks by tropical floods in Central America and the West Indies float in. Refuse from any river could eventually float to the Sargasso Sea. In 1968 it was reported that there was more oil and tar in the area than sargassum, coming from oil spills throughout the world. Many derelicts have been found in the Sargasso, giving it the reputation of being a graveyard of ships. Several novelists have created civilizations in the center of the Sea. Here, according to the stories, countless wrecks, many of them hundreds of years o1d and full of treasure, pile up against each other. The residents of the floating kingdom, who all drifted in helplessly at one time or other, disdain the treasure since it is of no use to them. The Sargasso Sea, both in truth and in fiction, is a strange place. The horse latitudes received their name when ships with horses aboard became stranded in the region. After a time of no rain and no progress, the supply of drinking water often grew dangerously low. Thlrst-crazed horses occasionally broke away and plunged into the sea, or the weaker ones were thrown overboard to save the 32

water for the better horses. Superstitious sailors believed that ghosts of the dead horses haunted the area. On the evening of September 13, Columbus noticed that his compass needle no longer pointed directly to the north star; but instead pointed about six degrees to the northwest. That was the first time that such a variation had ever been noted. He watched the variation increase for the next few days, knowing that the crew would be alarmed should they learn of the new development, The other pilots also noticed it and their concern quickly spread to the crew, who became terrified. 'To them it seemed that they were entering a region where even the laws of nature were different. The sailors felt that some unknown force was causing the compass to betray them, and they feared that other mysteries might lie in wait as they sailed on into the strange area. At this point those who write about this incident in relation to the Bermuda Triangle normally move on to some other subject, leaving the impression that there is indeed some strange force at work in the area. But the story does not really end here ..Columbus reasoned that the needle did not point to the north star, as had always been thought, but to something else. The pilots and the crew, having respect for their leader's scientific skills, believed him, and their alarm subsided. More than three centuries later, Washington Irving, in his biography of Columbus, wrote, ' ... the explanation of Columbus, therefore, was highly plausible, and it shows the vivacity of his mind, ever ready to meet the emergency of the moment. The theory may at first have been advanced merely to satisfy the minds of others, but Columbus appears subsequently to have remained satisfied with it himself.' A.lthough Irving doubted that Columbus's theory was correct, Columbus did have the correct answer to the puzzle.

The compass needle points not to the north pole or to the north star, but to the north magnetic pole, which is presently near Prince of Wales Is1and, halfway between Hudson Bay and the north pole. There are, in fact, very few places on tbe surface of the earth where a compass points to true north, almost everywhere there is some variation, ranging from a few degrees up to as much as 180 degrees. Pilots, sailors, and hikers must be familiar with this now commonly known property of the compass, and it is a routine matter to add or subtract the required number of degrees to com ... pensate for the variation in the area. The 'great flame of fire' that Columbus noted as having fallen into the sea was apparently a meteor. It did not cause any particular 3 33
•

consternation among the crew, and was noted simply because of its size, By the second week in October, the crew, pressing to turn back, was openly defiant to Columbus and his situation was desperate. For weeks they had been seeing land birds and plants and hopes were high that they would soon have a landfall. But each morning they would have nothing before them except open sea and more birds and plants. Clouds on the horizon were frequently mistaken for land, and sailors were so often crying out that they had seen land, only to raise and then dash the hopes of the crew, that Columbus declared that should anyone give such notice, and land not be discovered within three days, he would lose his claim to the reward promised to the first to view land. By October 11 they had seen so many unmistakable signs that land was near that Columbus himself was watching from the deck. About ten o'clock at night he thought he saw a light in the distance, and fearing that he too was seeing things, called over one of the men. He also saw the light. Another man was called, but by then the light had vanished. Being uncertain, they did not raise the crew's hopes by sounding the news. Four hours later Rodrigo de Triana, aboard thePinta, signaled that land was in sight. This time there was no doubt. Historians have continued to speculate and to disagree about what the light might have been. A torch in a fisherman's boat or being carried by someone on shore or a group of luminous fish are some of the suggested causes. The most commonly accepted theory is that it was an illusion caused by extreme strain and wishful thi nking. The region that now includes the Bermuda Triangle was thus given an air of mystery by its first known navigator and his superstitious crew almost five hundred years ago. Columbus entered the information in his logbook in a matter-of-fact manner, but it was later exaggerated and sailors grew to fear that which they could not understand.

34

August 1840

Rosalie
In August 1840 the large French ship Rosalie was found deserted but otherwise in perfect order near Nassau. Her sails were still set, and she appeared to have been abandoned only a few hours before being discovered. She had no leaks, carried a valuable cargo which was undamaged, and had only one living creature aboard - a half-starved canary in a cage. The whereabouts of the crew was never learned.
Recent versions of the Rosalie incident are based on an aCC01]nt .. in a 1931 book named Lo!, written by Charles Fort, who spent a good part of his life searching old newspapers for bits of information to be used in 'books that ask questions which orthodox science dares not answer.' Fort wrote that he took his information on the Rosalie from a single article in the London Times.
London Times, November 6, 1840, p. 6: SHIP DESERTED. - A letter from Nassau, in the Bahamas, beari ng date the 27th of August. has the following narrative:"A singular fact has taken place within the last few days. A large French vessel. bound from Hamburgh to the Havannah, was met by one of our small coasters, and was discovered to be completely abandoned. The greater part of her sails were set and she did not appear to have sustained any damage. The cargo, composed of wines, fru its, sil ks. &c., was of very considerable value, and was in a most perfect condition. The captain's papers were all secure in their proper place. The soundings gave three feet of water in the hold, but there was no leak Whatever. The only living beings found on board were a cat, Some fowls. and several canaries half dead with hunger. The cabins of the officers and passengers were very elegantly furnished, and everything indicated that they had been only recently deserted. In one of them were found several articles

3S

belonging to a lady's toilet, together with a quantity of ladies' wearing apparel thrown hastily aside, but not a human being was to be found on board. The vessel, which 'must have been left within a very few hours, contained several bares of goods addressed to different merchants in Havannah. She is very large, recently built, and called the Rosalie. Of her crew no intelligence has been received.'

and the Nassau Guardian were not yet in existence. According to

the British Library and the Library of Congress there are no libraries that now bold copies of the August 1840 newspapers from either Nassau or Havana. The Musee de la Marine in Paris had no

Further research on the vessel proved to be difficult.The London Times carried no more articles on the ship, and the New York Times

information on the ship, which was reported to be French, but Lloyd's located two items that were tantalizing.

J. F. Lane, Assistant Shipping Editor. Lloyd's. August 15, 1973 : I ... regret that a search of Lloyd's Records has failed to reveal mention of any incident involving a vessel named Rosalie in the Bahamas in 1840, However. 1 am enclosing extracts from Lloyd's Records which contain references to a vessel named Rossini which would appear to be the vessel in which you are interested.

Lloyd's List, September 25. 1840; Havana, 18th Aug. The Rossini, from Hambro to this port. struck on the Muares (Bahama Channel) 3rd inst.:" Crew and Passengers saved.
Havana, 5th Sept The Rossini. from Hambro to this port, which struck on the Muares (Bahama Channel) 3rd ult.] was fallen in with abandoned, 17th ult. and has been brought into this port a derelict.
"

Lloyd's List. October 17. 1840:

There were enough similarities between the Rossini and the Rosalie to suggest they might be the same ship. The names were so
close that one could have been mistaken for the other, especially if they were handwritten, which most messages were in 1840. The Nassau correspondent may have written Rossini but the Times editor may have mistakenly thought it was Rosalie. The route, in both cases, was Hamburg to Havana, and both vessels had been

fOW1d near Nassau.

• Inst. stands for 'instant', meaning 'of the current month' t or in this case August. ~ t Ult. stands for 'ultimo', or 'in the preceding month'. 36

The dates are also very close. It was reported on August 27 that the Rosalie was brought into Nassau 'within the last few days', and the Rossini was found on August 17 and towed to Nassau. Hoping to obtain information that would indicate whether or not the two names applied to the same vessel, I contacted the Ministry of Education and Culture in Nassau. They were not able to find any mention of the Rosalie, but did locate the Vice Admiralty Court Minutes related to the Rossini. These proceedings, which lasted several months, were a series of meetings primarily concerned with the value and storage of the cargo, insurance claims, and other business, but they did contain a brief reference to the discovery of the ship and mentioned that it had been towed to Nassau .
•

Vice Admiralty Court Minutes, 1840. August 25: The Advocate and Procurator General appeared with Benjamin Curry and John Baptiste. the masters of the British wrecking vessels Resolute and See/tower. and exhibited an affidavit detailing the curious circumstances connected with the findinq of the above named vessel [Rossini]. which was duly filed and entered.

From the phrase 'curious circumstances', it appears that the authorities in Nassau did not know that the vessel had run aground two weeks before and that those aboard had been rescued. Unfortunately, a search of the affidavits held by the Ministry did not produce the one giving the details of the discovery of the Rossini, which, if similar to those of the finding of the Rosalie, as described in the Times, would indicate the two were the same. As the situation now stands, there is reasonable doubt that the Rosalie incident is a mystery, "but no definite proof one way or the other.

'\

37

..

4
..

April 1854

Bella
One of the first mystery ships of the Bermuda Triangle was the Bella, , which vanished in 1854.
There is not much information to be found on the Bella. Although it was British, the London Times did not mention the disappearance, and it is not listed in any of the many standard reference works on shipwrecks. Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping of 1854 does list a Bella, built in Liverpool in 1852, and destined for Brazil, but does not say that it suffered an accident. The ship is also mentioned in Harold T. Wilkins's Strange Mysteries of Time and Space, in a chapter about an Englishman named Roger Tichbome. The incident is in a book of such a title because of a mystery having to do with Tichborne's inheritance, and his disappearance on the Bella was only incidental to the main story. Unfortunately, Wilkins did not say where he found his
information, According to Wilkins, six days after the Bella left Rio de Janeiro in A pril1854, bound for Jamaica, another ship, crossing the course the Bella was presumed to have taken, sighted debris in the water. A ship's long boat was upside down) and on its stem could be read, 'Bella, Liverpool'. The Bella itself was not seen. The flotsam was brought back to Rio. and a number of British and Brazilian steamships set out to hunt for survivors but were unsuccessful. It was assumed at the time that the Bella had capsized, as it was
I

overloaded to the point that the decks were carrying cabin furniture in order to make room for more freight. Sudden squalls
38

were known to have been in the area, and the night before the long boat was found the weather had been rather gusty. In Wilkins's account, no particular mystery surrounded the incident; the Bella was simply another ship that fai1ed to complete a voyage .. Wilkins did not say where the debris was found, but he did say that it was discovered six days after the Bella had left Rio de Janeiro. In the days of sailing ships a good freighter might make

.,"

r .. •

Rio de
Jane;r

The Bella
150 miles on a good day, possibly as much as 200 miles if all conditions were favorable. If the Bella had sailed for the full six days under optimum conditions, it could have been as far as 1,200 miles north of Rio when disaster struck. If conditions had been less favorable, or if it had not sailed all six days, it would have been found farther south. The distance from Rio de Janeiro to the Cape of Sao Roque is approximately 1,200 miles, or just about as far as the ship might have traveled if all had gone well. The Cape is 2,000 miles from

39

Barbados, and that is as close as the Bella could possibly have been to the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle should not be given 'credit' for the Bella, as it met its fate, whatever it might have been, in a different part of the world.

/
•

.• If

..

December 1872

Mary Celeste
No account of sea mysteries would be complete if it did not include the Mary Celeste. Although the boat was discovered drifting crewless between the Azores and Portugal, it is frequently mentioned in relation to the Bermuda Triangle. * All derelicts, no matter where they are found, are compared to it, and the ultimate mystery of any type is usually called the 'Mary Celeste' of its field. Flight 19, the five Navy aircraft that disappeared off the coast of Florida in 1945, is often called the 'Mary Celeste of aviation'. So many stories have been told about the famous derelict in the century since it was found that it is almost impossible to determine what is fact and what is fiction. Dozens of solutions to the mystery ranging from the very simple to the bizarre have been proposed, but no one knows, and no one ever will know, what actually took place. The Mary Celeste, a l03.. oot-long brigantine of some 282 tons, f was found abandoned at sea by the Dei Gratia on December 4, 1872. The two ships had taken on their cargos in New York early the previous month; Captain Briggs 'Of the Mary Celeste had sailed for Genoa on November 7, and Captain Moorhouse of the Dei Gratia sailed for Gibraltar on the fifteenth ..t When Captain Moorhouse sighted the other ship at sea a month later, the sails were set and it was sailing with the wind, but so erratically that a crew was sent to investigate. The boarding party found that the ship, which had been carrying Captain Briggs, his
fill'

west of Gibraltar. ~ t There is disagreement over the dates, but Charles Edey Fay, who took his information from original reports and is the most authoritative writer on the Mary Celeste, gives these.

* It was found at 38° 20' north,

17° 15' west, to be exact, which is 590 miles

41

wife, daughter, and a crew of eight, was completely deserted. The only lifeboat was gone, and appeared to have been launched, rather than having been torn away. * . Descriptions of the condition of the ship vary considerably, but it was essentially in good order, and had not suffered severely from the weather, although some of the sails were slightly torn. Some versions of the tale have it that a meal was about to be served, others have the meal cooking on the stove, and still others have all the dishes washed and properly stored. Some of the stories are so detailed that the table was said to have been laid with half-empty cups of coffee (still warm), tea, eggs, bacon, bread, and butter. A vial of oil was supposedly sitting upright on a sewing machine, indicating that the seas had been calm, and a clock was still ticking on the wall. The captain's personal effects were on board, and toys were on his bed, as if a child had been playing there. The cargo of 1,700 barrels of alcohol was intact, although there was 3! feet of water in the hold. However, the ship's papers, except for the captain's logbook, were missing, as were the navigation instruments. A sword was found hanging on the wall (or under the captain's bed) with blood (or rust) stains. Some versions of the story say there was blood (or wine) stains on the woodwork and on the sails, while others do not mention blood at all, even on the sword. A six months' supply of food and water was on board. The last entry in the logbook was on November 24, when the boat was 100 miles west of the Azores. By the time it was found, eleven days later, it was 500 miles to the east. Captain Moorhouse's crew brought the brig ioto Gibraltar, where he was awarded a small salvage fee after a lengthy and controversial inquiry. The court was unable to determine what had happened to the crew. Many versions of what had happened were told, retold, and embellished. Captain Moorhouse and his crew were accused of being pirates, of having seized the ship for its salvage value and disposing of its occupants. For a time it was rumored that Moorhouse had planted some of his crew on the Mary Celeste in New York, and that they had taken over the ship, killed the occupants, thrown them overboard, and then waited for Moorhouse and the Dei Gratia to catch up. Another version was that the crew was discovered raiding the cargo of alcohol. William A. Richard, then Secretary of the
• Some accounts have the boat still on the ship.

42

Treasury of the United States, wrote an open letter that appeared on the front page of the New York Times of March 25, 1873:

The circumstances of the case tend to arouse grave suspicion that the master. his wife, and child, and perhaps the chief mate,

American port or the West India Islands.

were murdered in the fury of drunkenness by the crew, who had evidently obtained access to the alcohol with which the vessel was in part laden. . It is thought that the vessel was abandoned by the crew between the 25th day of November and the 5th day of December, and that they either perished at sea, or, more likely, escaped on some vessel bound for some North or South

A simp1er theory was that the ship had been caught in a storm and when it seemed about to sink it was abandoned by the crew, who then disappeared in the lifeboat .. Much has been made of a forehatch that was found open, and one theory is that alcohol fumes blew the cover off. Vapor resembling smoke poured out of the hold, leading Captain Briggs to believe the vessel was afire or about to blow up. The crew took to the lifeboat, taking care to attach a line to the ship, but the rope somehow became untied and allowed the Mary Celeste to sail away from the lifeboat and its hapless occupants. Fiction writers have made good use of the incident, beginning with a young, unknown author named Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote what was at the time an anonymous article in the January 1884 issue of The Cornhill Magazine, entitled 'J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement'. Doyle's story, which appeared eleven years after the event, was readily believed because much of it was very close to the truth or was deduced from true statements. He named his fictional ship the Marie Celeste, and many later writers have referred to the real ship by that name. Much of what is now told about the Mary Celeste is really from Doyle's Marie Celeste. ' Since Doyle's time the proposed solutions have become even more ingenious. It has been suggested that food poisoning caused the crew to have delusions and that they jumped into the sea to escape some horrible hallucination; also that the cook poisoned everyone, threw the bodies overboard, and jumped in after them. Barratry, a calculated scheme to defraud the owners of the ship, has been suggested as a solution. If the Dei Gratia had landed the crew of the Mary Celeste somewhere off the beaten path, then sailed into port with the story of the derelict, and collected the

43

salvage money, the award could have been split among the members of both crews. There was talk that the vessel's owner had arranged for the crew to murder Briggs and his family and to sink the ship for the insurance, but that they somehow mishandled the job and lost their lives. The plan may have called for the crew to jump as the ship drove toward rocks near the Azores. An unexpected wind might have blown the ship to safety, allowing it to sail on as the crew drowned or was dashed to death upon the rocks. It has been suggested that a waterspout,. the seagoing cousin of the tornado, was responsible for the abandonment. Another theory is that a submarine disturbance caused the crew to panic and abandon ship. Yet another theory is that somewhere near the Azores the ship became, stranded on a 'ghost island', a shifting sandbar that comes and goes, constantly changing positions. The crew, thinking their position hopeless, took to the boat and were lost at sea. The sandbar then shifted again and set the ship free. Many years after the event a man who professed to be the only member of the crew to survive claimed that the captain challenged the mate to a swimming race around the ship, and both were kil1ed by a shark. As the crew looked on in horror the ship was struck by abuge wave that dumped all overboard. The ship stayed upright and sailed on alone while the crew, with the one exception, drowned. Fifty years after the incident 'confessions' were still being made by sailors claiming to have been members of the crew. None of the stories could be substantiated and today the fate of the occupants of the Mary Celeste is as much a mystery as the day the ship was

found deserted at sea.

Winter 1880

Atalanta
On January 31, 1880, the British ship Atalanta sailed/rom Bermuda with a crew of 290 cadets and officers. She disappeared en route to England, leaving not a trace behind.

The first public notice that the Atalanta was overdue appeared in the London Times on April 13, 1880.* After that the search for the ship figured in the news almost every day for several months, and the disappearance commanded world-wide attention. The Times never lacked opinions, theories, hopes, and fears about the fate of the ship.
London Times, April 1 3, 1880. p. 6: Seventy-two days having elapsed since the Atalanta, the sailing training-ship, was known to have left Bermuda on her return voyage to Portsmouth without intelligence having been received of her, it is feared that she may have been disabled by the lately prevailing high winds and driven out of her course. Although the Admiralty had previously ordered the Wye. store ship, to call in at the Azores ... in search of the missing ship, their Lordships have since deemed it advisable to order the whole of the Channel Squadron [five ships] to " " . cruise first to the Azores, and thence to Bantry Bay [lreJand], with the object of picking up intelligence of the missing ship. The ships will open out with in signalling distance of each other. by which means a large area of sea will be explored. london Times. April 14. 1880. p. 2: When the Atalanta left Bermuda there were 109 tons of water on board, and an ample supply of provisions, The ship Was in an respects sound, possessed of unusual stability, and
• Many writers have erroneously called the ship the Atlanta.

45

/
,1'
..

.'

klores

.... •

/
/ ~Ber

The Atalanta

commanded by an officer of qcod judgment and high pro ... fessional qualifications; but the unexpected delay in her arrival affords cause for anxiety for her safety, bearing in mind the many disasters which have occurred during the past two months. consequent on the very severe weather which has been experienced in the Atlantic. There is, however, still ground for hope that she may be only dismasted and may yet arrive j n safety . . . . It is just possible that. having had the misfortune to have

46

her topmasts carried away by the easterly gales. which continued for 'nearly a month, the ship may have been driven off her course, and be at the moment laboring in the North Atlantic. An attempt has been made to connect [with the Atalanta] the copper-bottomed ship which is said to have been discovered bottom-up by the Tamar, ... but this is utterly fallacious ...• It would be impossible for the Atalanta. with her weight of water-tanks and 43 tons of ballast on board, to float in the circumstances stated. If she were once to turn turtle, she would sink with. alas! ... alacrity .... . . " It is feared by many people in Plymouth that the ship, bottom upwards. ... is the missing vessel. There is much excitement here.

London Times, April 1 5, 1 880, p. 10 : During the day more than 150 telegrams arrived [at the Admiralty] from various parts of the country from relatives of the crew and those on board. asking for information .... Their Lordships regretted they were unable to give any information. More than 200 persons also made personal inquiries at Whitehall during the dav, It may reassure some to be told that a vessel took 84 days in coming from Bermuda, whereas the Atalanta has not yet been more than 74 days. The captain of the Tamar has sent'a telegram ... stating that during his last voyage he did not, as has been reported. pass a ship bottom upwards . . . . This morning [Portsmouth] was thrown into a state of excitement by a rumour that the missing ship had arrived all safe at Falmouth .... [The report] was displayed at the newspaper offices and various shopwindows. [and] the dockyard gates were soon besieged by the anxious relatives and friends of those on board .... However, ... a teleqrarn from Falmouth Was posted at the dockyard stating that a merchant vessel called the Atalanta had certainly arrived in the harbour that morning. but that the rumour of the arrival of Her Majesty's ship Atalanta was incorrect.

~I

London Times, April 16. 1 880. p. 5: ... Although the absence of information continues to lead us to a plentiful crop of rumours and speculations, the public will do right to 'regard her for sometime longer as simply missing. Had she, as has been surmised, foundered during a gale, or been burnt or come into collision with an iceberg, it is fair to assume that she would not have been so completely wiped out of existence as not to have left some floating wreckage behind to tell the story of her fate ... " The popular theory still is that she has been dismasted, and has been help ... 47

lessly driven out of her course. and consequently out of the track of steamships .... The coral reefs in the vicinity of Bermuda are of an exceptionally dangerous kind. extending ... in some places more than ten miles from the land .. ~ ~These reefs shut in the islands on three sides ... and render access and departure from them an extremely perilous undertaking. Should the Atalanta have gone to pieces upon this coast ... the wreckage would [by no means] be washed ashore: on the contrary. it would most probably drift out to sea and be carried eastwards by the Gulf Stream. London Times, April 19. 1880, p, 6: On Saturday a report was bruited abroad to the effect that a lifeboat had been found. with the name Atalanta painted on the ·stern. This was not confirmed, and even if it had been the boat could not have belonged to the missing ship, as it is not a custom in the navy to paint the names of the men-af-war to which they belong on the stern or anywhere else. London Times. April 20, 1 880. p. 1 2 : The gunboat A von," from the Chile station, arrived in Portsmouth "Harbour yesterday. She reports that at the Azores she noticed immense quantities of wreckage floating about ... in fact the sea was strewn with spars, etc. The harbour at Fayal was crowded with dismasted ships, and wreckage was washed in continually during the five days the A von remained. Nothing, however, seemed to indicate that a ship had gone down or broken to pieces .... Some of the officers of the A von do not deem it impossible that the Atalanta has met with icebergs, but they reject the idea of her having 'turned turtle'. London Times. April 21, 1880, p. 8: ... There can be no Question of the criminal folly of sending some 300 lads who have never been to sea before in a training ship without a sufficient number of trained and experienced seamen to take charge of her in exceptional 'circumstances. The ship's company of the Atalanta numbered only about 11 able seamen: and when we consider that young lads are frequently afraid to go aloft in a qa!e to take down sail ... a special danger attaching to the Atalanta becomes apparent

London Times, April 26, 1880, p. 8: There is no news to report with reference to the Atalanta,
and even those hitherto most sanguine are beginning to lose heart. The Channel Squadron is now on its way to Bantry Bay, its searches at the Azores having evidently proved fruitless .•••

48

The public will probably not rest satisfied until an examination of the coasts of Greenland and Iceland has been made.

London Times, April 27, 1880, p. 10: The crew of the Tamar, which arrived at Portsmouth to-day. were not aware that any anxiety was felt as to the missing training ship Atalanta until they arrived in England .... Among

the passengers is an able seaman named John Varling* ... who was invalidated from the Atalanta on the 3rd of January . . . . Varlinq's account of the performance of the training ship is far from reassuring, though the question win. of course, arise as to the value of his opinion. She is reported as exceedingly crank, as being overweight and as having aroused the distrust of Captain Stirling She rolled 32 degrees, and Captain Stirling is reported as having been heard to remark that had she rolled one degree more she must have gone over and foundered. Durinq the tryi ng situation the pecu liar wea knesses of the ship's company were brought prominently into notice. As, with the exception of two, the officers were almost as much out for training as the crew. Captain Stirling scarcely ever left the deck, and the work of shortening sail and sending down the spars was left to the able seamen on board, who, including marines (mostly servants), petty officers. and cooks, only numbered about 50 in a crew of 250 .... The young sailors were either too timid to go aloft or were incapacitated by sea -sickness .... Varling states that they hid themselves away, and could not be found when wanted by the boatswain's mate. It took the ship 31 days to go to Barbados from Tenerife, •.. or about nine days [extra] .... The Atalanta left Barbados on Friday, the 9th of January, for Antigua. where they caught the yellow fever. Two men .. whose names Varling cannot remember, had already died from the disease .... The ship called in at Bermuda on the 30th of January for water and provisions, and finally left for home on the 31 51, since which time nothing has been heard of her.

London Times. May 10, 1880, p. 8 : The Channel Squadron, under the command of Admiral Hood, arrived at Bantry Bay this (Sunday) afternoon. The Admiral reports that nothing was heard of the Atalanta or anything belonging to her picked up.

tend to confirm the previous accounts of a storm of unusual • The Times spells the name AVerting' in some articles, and 'Varling' in others.

London Times, May 18, 1880, p. 10: To the Editor of the Times Sir: The reports of the captains of ships recently arrived

all

49

violence having prevailed in the Atlantic ••• in the probable track of the Atalanta from Bermuda. To quote a few cases: ... the Caspaer was at Flores in a disabled state having been on her beam ends * ... for 1 9 hours, in a gale, on February 1 2. Second mate was killed" first mate broken legs, and two men seriously hurt. ... Ulster. from St John's, was fallen in with ... watertogged. and a complete wreck, crew at mastheads. without food or A large ship abandoned and only mizen mast standinq. a dangerous wreck to ships bound eastward, was passed .... The following ships are also still missing: Winnefred, from New Orleans, December 30 : Devana, from Bankok, October 1. and St Helena, January 9 ; Bay of Biscay, from Rangoon. last seen on February 7. We can gather from the above accounts, extracted from many other reports, some idea of the fearful weather encountered, and the havoc caused by these gales, and those who have experienced storms at sea, and know full well the dire effects of heavy water breaking on board a ship, the running into a half sunken wreck or iceberg on a stormy night in mid-Atlantic, can form some conclusion as to the fate of the
a
0

water

It

••

Atelente ....

ALLEN YOUNG, Master Mariner London Times. June 10, 1880. p. 5: The Accountant-General of the Navy has received instructions from the Admiralty to post up the books of the Atalanta to the 4th. Inst. [of June]. and the name of the training-ship will be forthwith removed from the Navy list. ... Widows of officers will receive the award of the special pensions which is due them in consequence of their husbands having been drowned while in the performance of duty.

I am, Sir, yours most obediently,

Captains continued to report the sighting of overturned vessels that might have been the missing ship. Messages were found in bottles and carved on barrel staves, but none appeared to be authentic. Many theories were proposed - some to explain why the ship sank, others to explain why it was still afloat. Rumors spread quickly: it has been found capsized; it had sailed into Falmouth; it had struck an iceberg.
• A vessel is on its beam-ends when thrown over until the deck is almost vertical.

50

It cannot be said with certainty that no trace of the ship was ever found. The ocean was filled with debris following the severe storms that wracked the ocean during February and March, and spars and masts carried no identification. Even the Navy lifeboats were unmarked. It may be that many eyes unknowingly saw parts of the
Atalanta. t After many years the details of the incident, especially those of the weather and the other ships that disappeared at the time, were forgotten and the Atalanta came to be remembered as the ship that was lost in the Umbo in 1880. The ship may have been lost far from the Bermuda Triangle, as only about 500 miles of its 3,OOO-mile journey were through it. Yet it is counted as a victim of the

Triangle.

,.

SI

1881

Ellen Austin and the Derelict

One of the weirdest cases of a derelict vessel occurred in 1881 when the British ship Ellen Auscin encountered Q schooner in the midAtlantic. It had been abandoned but was still seaworthy. A small salvage crew went aboard and both vessels headed for Sf John's, Newfoundland. A fog descended and the ships drifted apart. They met again several days later. Once again the schooner was deserted. The salvage crew, just like their predecessors, had vanished.
The basic story, which stops at this point, can be traced as far back as Rupert Gould's The Stargazer Talks, published in 1944. There are several other versions that begin where Gould left off. One is that the captain of the Ellen Austin attempted to place another salvage crew on the derelict but no one would go and the vessel was left behind. The other is that another crew did go aboard, the vessels were parted by a squall, and the schooner and its second crew were never seen again. Unfortunately, Gould did not cite his source, and his failure to mention the month of the occurrence made research difficult. I was not able to find the original report of the incident despite lengthy searches through the New York Times Index, the Index to the Times (London),* and Hocking. Lloyd's had no information. The Newfoundland public library in St John's checked its files and the local paper, the Evening Telegram, for 1881 but could find nothing.
,
_.

• Although there were no articles in the London Times about the Ellen Austin under the heading 'Shipping Accidents', the item may be one of the hundreds of miscellaneous items under that heading. I was not able to check them all. Gould was English, so his source of information very likely was a newspaper from that country.

S2

St John's. Rupert Gould was a skeptical and diligent researcher who made authentic attempts to solve the mysteries that he encountered. The incident may we11 have occurred as he said it did, but the variations that go beyond his account are fiction. The Ellen Austin's discovery win remain a mystery at least un til someone locates the information that, Gould used for his account. It may remain a mystery.even after the source is discovered .

I checked, page by page, The Newfoundlander for 1881 and half of 1882 but had negative resu1ts even though that paper made a practice of describing interesting adventures of ships that docked at Sf John's. There were many accounts of the travails of other vessels that journeyed that way. It is oot likely that the story of the Ellen Austin would have ~eo missed had the ship stopped at

..

1866

1868

1884

Lotta

Viego

Miramon

In 1866 the Lotta, a Swedish bark bound/rom Giiteborg to Havana, vanished somewhere north of' Haiti. Two years later the same fate was waiting for the Viego, a Spanish merchantman. The chain continued in 1884 when the Italian schooner Miramon, bound/or New Orleans, disappeared.

These are incidents for which, despite extensive research, I was not able to find any information, In some of the cases the probJem was that the incidents, as they appear in the Legend, are very brief and almost devoid of details such as dates and routes. There is no proof that the ships disappeared in the Triangle, that they suffered their fates outside it, or that they even existed.

54

October 1902
Freya
The Freya, a German bark, wasfound deserted at sea on October 20,

1902. She had sailed from Manzanillo in the West Indies on October 3, en route to Chile, and was not seen or heardfrom again until she was found dismasted, lying on her side, and crewless. Her anchor was hanging free at the bow, and the captain's calendar was turned to October 4, indicating that disaster had struck soon after the ship had left port. The winds were known to have been light at the time.
Lloyd's Register. Wreck Returns. 1900-1904. (Section entitled Abandoned at Sea) Number 446 : · Freya. 626 net tons. German. Point of departure: Manzanillo. Destination: Punta Arenas. Cargo: Ballast. Description of boat: Wood and bark. Circumstances and place: Near Mazatlan. Date of the disaster: Prior to October 21, 1902.
III

Nature, April 25, 1907, p, 610: 'The Mexican Earthquake'

Another great earthquake has been added to the series which has marked the recent increase in seismic and volcanic activity along the Pacific coast of America .... * , Seaquakes are common in this region; sometimes they are felt by ships at sea though unnoticed on shore, and in at least ~ne instance seem to have caused the loss of a ship. The story IS a remarkable one On October 3, 1902, the German barque Freya cleared from Manzanillo for Punta Arenas; nothing more has been heard of the captain or crew, but the ship was found. twenty days later, partially dismasted and Iyjng on its side. There was nothing to explain the condition of the ship, but a --Italics mine.

5S

wall calendar in the captain's

cabin showed that the catas .. trophe must have overtaken it on October 4, not long after leaving port, as was also indicated by the anchor being found still hanging free at the bow. Weather reports, show that only light winds were experienced in this region from October 3 to

n Mazalla•
ManzaniUo
Chitpanzln

AcapulcO

The Freya October 5, but on the other hand, severe earthquakes were felt

in Acapulco and Chilpanzingo on October 4 and 5, one of which probably caused the damage to the Freya which led to its abandonment.

All the versions of the Freya story 1ead back, either directly or indirectly, to the 1907 article in Nature; no other source has ever been reported. The artic1e is primarily concerned with a series of earthquakes on the west coast ofMexico. In the one paragraph on the derelict, the cities of Manzanillo, Acapulco, and Chilpanzingo

are mentioned, all of which are on the west side of Mexico. Mazatlan, where Lloyd's reports the derelict was found, is also on the Pacific side. The confusion appears to have been caused by the existence of another city named- Manzanillo, this one being a seaport on the southern coast of Cuba. The first writer who ascribed the mystery of the Freya to the Bermuda Triangle 'mistakenly' assumed that the ship had sailed from the Cuban port rather than from the Mexican city of the same name. 56

The finding of the vessel north of its starting point is due to the action of the wind and currents after the ship was abandoned. It is not known what became of the crew, or whether the earthquake was in fact the cause of the wreck.

"

..

57

10

...

November 1909

Joshua Slocum and the Spray

Captain Joshua Slocum, the world's best known and most skilled sailor of the day, vanished in the Bermuda Triangle in 1909. He had previously won worldwide acclaim by being the first man to sail single-handed around the world. The voyage, which took several years in his superb yawl, the Spray, was finished in 1898. He was successful despite obstacles that would have defeated most ordinary men and boats. He outraced pirates-near Morocco, survived storms that destroyed larger ships nearby, held entire tribes ofsavages at bay in the Straits ofMagellan, and sailed on after his maps had been destroyed. He was stranded for a week in the doldrums of'the Sargasso Sea, and was greeted upon his return to New York City, at night, by the worst storm of the voyage, a tornado that damaged much of the city. Yet, this same man, who possessed the skill, courage, and stamina to defy successfully the worst hazards that nature could deal him, disappeared several years later on the relatively short journey
on November 14, 1909, bound for South America, and was never
seen again. hazards
•

through the Bermuda Triangle. He set sail/rom Martha's Vineyard

Many who knew Captain Slocum.felt he was too good a sailor, and the Spray too good a boat, to have been defeated by any 0/ the normal

of the sea.

No one knows for certain what happened to Joshua Slocum and the Spray, despite the many stories and Tumors that have grown since he disappeared almost seventy years ago. Some say that he was never seen again after departing on the trip that might have turned into another circumnavigation of the globe, while others report that he was seen in various ports along the way.

58

Many theories have been suggested to explain his disappearance. He may have finally met the gale that was capable of sinking him. The Spray might have caught fire. He may have been run down at night by a larger ship. It was not unusual for a small boat to be struck by a steamer in the busy coastal waters. A sailing boat's lights, normally dim, were sometimes hidden from view by the boat's own sails, and a large ship could easily crush a 37-foot yawl without anyone even feeling a bump. According to one of America's foremost writers of sea stories, Edward Rowe Snow, Slocum was run down by a SOO..ton mail steamer near Turtle Island, Lesser Antilles, while en route to the Orinoco River .. * Descriptions of Slocum's health varied. His son, Victor, claimed that he was in the best of health, while others felt he was growing old. Slocum himself felt that his mind was not as sharp as it once had been, and he admitted to having an occasional blackout spell. It is possible that he fell overboard, either because of an accident or because of blacking out. He may have died a natural death and the boat eventually foundered either with or without his body still aboard. The condition of the Spray was also debated and continues to be a subject of controversy among sailors. Slocum declared it to be completely seaworthy and able to sail for lengthy stretches with no one at the helm. He felt it had earned its reputation when it had completed its trip around the world. Others disagreed, saying that Slocum completed his epic voyage in spite of the Spray, not because of it; that his great skin carried him through situations where lesser men in the same boat would have failed" Expert sailors discouraged builders from imitating the lines of the Spray, claiming that it was a hazard to anyone lacking the skil1 of a Slocum. One sailor who saw the boat just before it sailed on its last voyage felt that it had aged along with its master. It was no longer neat and trim but dirty, smelly, and showing signs of wear and poor Some reports say Slocum was seen in various parts of the West Indies before he disappeared, and others state he was seen sailing up the Orinoco River long after he had been declared missing. It has been suggested that Slocum was unhappy with his wife and decided to deliberately vanish in order to spend his remaining days somewhere in peace. The fate of Joshua Slocum and the Spray is truly a mystery of

maintenance.

the sea.

• Edward Rowe Snow, Mysterious Tales of the New England Coast.

59

11

March 1918
Cyclops
On March 4, 1918, the USS Cyclops, a 19,600-ton Navy collier, sailed from Barbados, West Indies, with a crew of 309 men and a cargo of manganese ore. The 542-1001 ship, one of the largest vessels afloat, was bound for Norfolk, * but it Jailed to arrive. In spite of a massive search no trace was ever found. The ship did not send an
SOS. It was first thought that she had been torpedoed, but a search 0/ German records after the war proved that submarines 'had not been operating in the area at the time. The Germans made a practice of broadcasting the destruction of large enemy ships, and no such announcement was made for the Cyclops. It was suggested that she might have struck a mine, but it was later shown that none had been in the area. A mine strike normally allowed time to send an SOS, and at least some 0/ the men would have been able to escape in life rafts. The lack ofdebris also spoke against a mille strike, as well as against the possibility ofan internal explosion, which would have littered the ocean with wreckage and bodies. Some felt that the ship had simply foundered, but others, including the Navy, emphasized that the weather had not been bad, certainly not bad enough to sink the large, seaworthy, eight-year-old ship. The captain, George W. Worley, had been in the Navy jar twentymaiden voyage in 1910. After a lengthy investigation the Navy stated: 'The disappearance of this ship has been one of the most baffling mysteries in the annals

eight years and had been the Cyclop's commanding officer since her

destination has sometimes been given as Norfolk, sometimes as Baltimore. In either case the route across the Atlantic would have been the same, as both cities are in Chesapeake Bay.

* The

60

of the Navy, all attempts to locate her having proved unsuccessful. Many theories have been advanced, but none satisfactorily accounts for her disappearance.' President Wilson said that 'Only God and the sea know what happened to the great ship.' One highly respected journal of the time, the Literary Digest, even speculated that a giant squid rose out of the ocean, wrapped its tentacles around the Cyclops, and dragged it down to the bottom of the sea.

Public announcement of the overdue ship was withheld until the middle of the next month.

Virginian-Pilot April 15, 1918, p, 1 :

AMERICAN NAVAL COLLIER PROBABLY LOST FATE MAY BE ANOTHER MYSTERY OF SEA
Washington, April 14. The big American naval collier Cyclops ... has been overdue in an Atlantic port since March 13. The navy department announced today that she was last reported ... March 4, and that extreme anxiety is entertained as to her

safety .... The [Navy] statement follows: ... 'No well-founded reason can be given to explain the Cyclops' being overdue, as no radio communication with or trace of her has been had since leaving the West Indies port. The weather in the area in which the vessel must have passed has not been bad and could hardly have given the Cyclops trouble. While a raider or sub ... marine could be responsible for her loss, there have been no reports that would indicate the presence of either in the locality .... 'It was known that one of the two engines of the Cyclops was injured and that she was proceeding at a reduced speed with one engine compounded. [But] even if her main engines were totally disabled, the ship would still be capable of using her radio plant. 'The search for the Cvclops still continues, but the navy department feels extemely anxious as to her safety.'

Virginian-Pilot, April 16. 1918, p. 8:

Washington, April 1 5.... Officials refused to believe that the great 19.000-ton collier and the 293 lives she carried could have been wiped out without leaving a trace. Orders have gone Out. therefore. for the searching vessels to 'quarter' every rod of the route covered by the Cyclops and to visit everyone of the scores of islands which dot that portion Of the sea. Navy officials frankly confessed that no theory yet advanced to explain the disappearance of the Cyclops •.• seemed 61

plausible in the face of the facts .... An internal explosion might have destroyed the vessel's wireless and motive power at one instant, but surface wreckage would have remained to mark her grave. . · The possibility that a sudden hurricane. not infrequent in those waters, might have first disabled and then engulfed the collier was admitted. but again it was pointed out that some evidence of the disaster must have been left in this case.

The search was discontinued in May, all efforts having been fruitless. The Navy calculated the stability of the Cyclops and con .. eluded that the ship would have had an uncomfortable, quick, but not excessive roll. It might have been possible, they said) for the heavy ore to shift enough to cause a list and to submerge the deck edge; such a condition would have been dangerous under certain conditions of sea and weather. The Navy noted, however, that no unusual weather had been encountered by other vessels along the same route. The Office of Naval Intelligence later listed the major theories that had been suggested to account for the loss. 1. The crew may have mutinied, seized the ship, and saiJed off the usual trade route. 2..The American Consul General at Rio de Janeiro, a passenger who was accused of being pro-German, might have arranged to hand the ship over to the Germans. 3. The ship was torpedoed by a German submarine. 4. The cargo of manganese dioxide, highly incendiary under certain conditions, might have exploded. 5. The Cyclops may have foundered as a result of excessive strain from rolling. 6. Captain Worley, who was born in Germany, might have surrendered the Cyclops to the Germans or connived at her destruction by submarines. The Navy could find no evidence to support any of the theories. Many supposed clues to the loss have appeared over the years, but none were authentic. In 1919 the mother of one of the crewmen received a telegram from New York saying that he was safe and that the Cyclops was in a German port. A bottle message was found near Galveston that told of the Cyclops being torpedoed 1,000 miles east of Newfoundland. Both were investigated and found to be hoaxes, In 1920 Lt Commander Mahlon S. Tisdale provided evidence to support the theory that the ship had capsized. During a cruise on the Cyclops Tisdale discovered that the manhole plates on the 62
t

topside tanks had all been Jeft open. 'I fought my way to the bridge and reported to the captain that someone had opened all of the topside tanks. He laughed at my earnestness and said that they were always left off in accordance with instructions from the navy yard .... ' Tisdale felt that on the Cyclops's last voyage the cargo might have shifted and allowed the sea to rush into the open tanks, causing the ship to capsize. 'This could all occur in a few seconds and the ship would be bottom up before anyone could abandon ship .••• With everything secured for sea there would be little wreckage. . . . There would be no debris such as in the case of striking a mine or torpedo .. There would be no time for an "S .. .S. 'There would have been no O time for anything. The few men in the water could not have Jived long of their own accord. Such small gear as did float off would have been lost in the vastness of the ocean long before the rescue vessels started their search. '* A1though Commander Tisdale's explanation is one of the most commonly accepted solutions, there are many who disagree, saying that there are two important flaws in his argument. The first is that it assumes heavy seas, and reports consistently show that the weather was not bad. The second flaw is that his reasoning required that the manhole pJates be left off. Commander I. l. Yates of the Norfolk Navy Yard charged that Worley, who was known for his jokes, had pulled Tisdale's
leg. "When Lieut Commander Tisda1e discovered the covers off the topside tanks the Cyclops was in a light condition, and it was immaterial whether the covers were on or off. In fact, in this condition the topside tanks are generaJly kept full of water [for bal1ast].' t Yates continued that there were no such orders from the naval yard and that Worley would not have sailed with the covers off while the ship was loaded. The theory of a Captain Zearfoss was that 'The Cyclops was

sunk by her cargo. Manganese .... has a tendency to sett1e down, grinding away whatever is below it. ... I think the end came ~udden1y when the bottom practically dropped out. 't Many Navy men felt that the Cyclops's top..heavy super ...
S. Tisdale, 'Did the Cyclops Turn Turtle l' United States Naval Institute .. Proceedings, 'January 1920, pp. 57-59. t I. I. Yates, 'Discussion', United States Naval Institute. Proceedings, April 1920, p. 604. · t 'Collier Cyclops Mystery Still Causes Speculation,' United States Naval Institute. Proceedings, September 1923, pp. 1569-1570.

* Mahlon

63

structure had been the cause. Steel derricks, designed for the rapid loading and discharging of coal, towered high above the deck. If the ship were to list severely the top-heavy equipment would slow the recovery, the cargo might shift, and the vessel would quickly capsize. Partially filled holds, like the Cyclops's, would be more likely to shift than would cargos in fuII holds. The flaw in this theory, like most of the others, was that it would happen only during bad weather. By 1930 the Cyclops was still remembered well enough to garner the headlines when parts of a diary sent to the Navy revealed that four men 'in enemy pay' had placed dynamite around the engine and had sunk the ship. At first the Navy felt that the diary might be genuine, but many points in the story were dubious, especially where it told of an enemy ship with 700 crewmen that remained in the area to clear away all the debris. The story quickly faded away, relegated to the status of an elaborate attempt at a hoax. As recently as 1956 it was reported that the ship was seen to have blown up in the Straits of Florida 'just before Easter" in 1918, but there was no explanation of why the report had been withheld for almost forty years, or why the ship might have been so far off course several weeks after it had been overdue. in 1969 Conrad A. Nervig, who had served on the Cyclops on its last voyage to South America, suggested that in view of the known evidence he thought the ship had broken in half. 'I was mystified at hearing a sound not unlike that caused by metal plates being rub bed together., . . The ship was working to the extent tha t where steam or water pipes. . . were in contact with portions of the hull, the movement could be distinctly seen .... The deck amidships (was] rising and faUing as jf the ship were conforming to the contour of the seas. Later that day when I called it to the Captain's attention, he shrugged it off with a superior, "Son, she'll last as

the cargo to several ot the amidship holds, accentuating the ship'S inherent weakness. According to Nervig, this may have caused the ship to break in two and sink before an SOS could be sent. The ship, however, had been properly loaded. It was done under the personal supervision of Captain Worley and foreman Manuel Pereira of the Brazilian Coaling Company, who bad been in charge of loading vessels for many years. Pereira stated that the
A. Nervig, 'The Cyclops Mystery', United States Naval Institute Proceedings, July 1969. p. 149.

long as we do." '* Nervig surmised that the task of loading the vessel might have been assigned to some young, inexperienced officer who confined

* Conrad

64

ship could have carried at least 2,000 more tons of ore without

being endangered, and that the cargo had been well trimmed throughout the entire ship. The Cyclops continues to be in the news, even apart from its, role in the Legend of the Bermuda Triangle. It was the first large II radio-equipped ship to disappear without sending an SOS and it. wasthe largest Navy ship ever to be lost without a trace. Every March, the anniversary of its disappearance, its story is retold, the theories are rehashed, and its famous picture is shown yet another time. Its loss continues to be rightfully called the 'most bafiling mystery in the annals of the Navy.' Unlike other disappearances, pertinent new information con.. tinues to be received about the Cyclops. In the past few years there have been two important new developments in the case. The first occurred in 1968 when a Navy diver, Dean Hawes, discovered a ship while searching for the missing nuclear submarine Scorpion.

CYCWps. . Because of the disabled engine the ship's speed' was only 10 knots, or about 240 nautical miles a day. It would have followed the 15-mile-a-day North Equatorial Current for about 1,300 miles until it met the Gulf Stream, which would then carry it as much as 5 65

Hawes was stunned by the strange design of the vessel. Its bridge was high above the deck, supported by steel stilts ..Upright beams like the skeleton of a skyscraper ran almost its entire length. Before he could explore the wreck, which was in 180 feet of water 70 miles east of Norfolk, he was forced to surface, and bad weather drove his ship from the area. Hawes later saw a picture of the Cyclops for the first time and is positive that it was the ship he had stood OD. The wreck is located along the path that the Cyclops would have followed on its journey to Chesapeake Bay_, Hawes and Representative G. William Whitehurst of Virginia persuaded Navy officials to investigate, and divers were to attempt to relocate the wreck as a training exercise. The announcement of the discovery of the wreck led to the second major break in the case. I was doing research on the Cyclops at the time, and its possible location immediately raised several questions in my mind. If the wreck is the Cyclops, what could have caused it to sink so close to its destination? Why had it not sunk earlier in the voyage when it was heavier because of its unburned fuel and thus more susceptible to capsizing or structural failure? The answer, I reasoned, had to be the one possibility that has steadily been denied since the time the ship disappeared; a storm had to have been responsible for the disappearance of the

120 miles a day for the remaining 500 miles. Based on these esti .. mates, the Cyclops should have been where the sunken ship now lies after a little more than six days of travel. Since it had sailed from Barbados in the early evening of March 4, it should have been approaching Norfolk on the night of March 10. I confidently decided that the newspapers, the Navy, and an the ships at sea had been wrong, and tha t there had been a storm near Norfolk that day that was strong enough to sink the ship. Since a

Norfolk X

SIJ:!~N

Bermuda

\
....

,
•

\
\

"'" <, <,

,

<,

\. ..\ ct. \
Ii

-,

· • •

'Barbados

The Cyclops north wind has a reputation for raising havoc with the Gulf Stream, the storm had probably come from that direction. A north wind strikes violently against the opposing flow of the current, turning it into a churning, thrashing torrent that has overwhelmed many a vesse1. If there had-been such a-storm I felt that the wreck might very wen be the Cyclops. The National Climatic Center in Ashville, North Carolina, mailed the weather records for the east coast the same day they received my phone call. These records show that the wind blew hard in Norfolk early in March, reaching a top speed of 30 to 40 knots almost every day. On the eighth it died almost completely, but slowly began to build in strength the next morning. By 5 :00 PM

66

of the ninth, gale warnings had been issued from Maine to North Carolina. The wind came steadily from the southwest, increasing in strength until by 10:00 AM of the tenth it had reached 58 miJes an hour. After noon the wind shifted, blowing from the northwest at 60 miles an hour" The speed varied between 40 and 60 until 5:00 PM, then remained near 40 for the rest of the evening, finally' tailing off about midnight. . The storm had been widespread. Peak winds of 84 miles an hour struck New York City, where they caused one death, and the gale warnings had been extended south to Florida. The steamship Amoleo, 375 miles northeast of Norfolk, was caught by the storm from noon of the ninth until the afternoon of the eleventh, It had to heave to to ride out the gale for the entire two days, and suffered $150tOOO worth of damage. Officer W. J. Riley of the Amolco later told a reporter for Norfolk's Virginian-Pilot that the Navy collier was probably caught 'in the teeth of the gale', and he felt 'positive the Cyclops was sunk during the raging of the high winds.' Several seamen acquainted with the rolling tendency of the vessel seconded his opinion and added that it had probably sunk quicker than the lifeboats could be lowered. Statements made just after the announcement that the Cyclops was missing suggest that the Navy thought the ship had been lost near the West Indies. The order to 'visit everyone of the islands that dot that part of the sea', and the opinion that a hurricane, 'not infrequent in those waters', might have been the cause, indicate that the eyes of the investigators were focused so far away that they had not seen what had happened directly in front of their noses. The absence of any calls from the ship after it left Barbados also reinforced the idea that it sank early in its journey, near the West Indies. Everyone was accustomed to strong spring winds, and the storm, which was apparently worse at sea than it was on land, did not receive much publicity. The Virginian .. ilot mentioned it only in a P half ... inch notice on March 10, hidden at the bottom of page two between ads for Conkey's Buttermilk and the Couper Marble Works. It said only that gale warnings had been issued at 5:00 PM the previous day from Maine to North Carolina. There were no articles in later days that mentioned the storm of March 10. Five weeks later when the headlines announced that the Cyclops Was overdue, the wind that had gone almost unnoticed when it OCcurred had been forgotten. It was quietly tucked away in the Weather Bureau's statistics sheets where it would remain un-

67

discovered for fifty-six years. No one at the time, including the Weather Bureau and the newspapers, thought to mention it to the Navy. Officer Riley and the Amolco were never heard of after the one small article in the Norfolk paper. The nation's attention was on the battlefields of Europe and the blackouts, morale, and Liberty bond drives at home, not on the lost Navy ship whose picture appeared on page one for a few days. As a result the story has always been that the weather 'was not bad anywhere along the route' . Contrary to popular opinion, there never was an official inquiry into the disappearance. The Navy was fighting a war and could not take time out to examine the loss of every ship that occurred. Had there been an investigation, the weather information would surely have been discovered. As of August 1974 it still was not known if the sunken ship off Norfolk is the Cyclops. On July 24 Lieutenant Douglas Armstrong, skipper of the Exploit, reported that he had located a ship in 190 feet of water, seventy miles northeast of Cape Henry, and had marked it with a buoy so divers could later identify it. I spoke with Hawes again on August 17, 1974, and learned that he had gone out with the Navy during the first week in August and watched on television as the ship was examined by underwater cameras. Because of construction differences, he could tell that it was not the same one he had found earlier. No plans were then made for a concerted effort to locate the ship. However, the area is used by the Navy for training and requalifying divers, and it is likely that the ship that Hawes found win soon be found again and positively identified. It might very well be the Cyclops. Tn any case, the missing part of the puzzle, a substantial reason for the disappearance, has finally been foundthe overlooked storm of March 10, 1918.
•

68

12

January 1921

Carroll A. Deering

The story of the Carroll A. Deering has been told so many ways that it would not be right to call any of them the Legend except for a very short version which goes something like this: On a cold, gray, January dawn in 1921 the five-masted schooner Carroll A. Deering was discovered hard aground on Diamond Shoals with all sails set. A meal was still on the stove but the only living things aboard were two cats. The crew~was never found. That same

year a dozen other vessels disappeared in the area and the government of the United States investigated the possibility that pirates or Soviet sympathizers had seized them. At the end of the lengthy investigation into the mystery of the Carroll A. Deering, one government official stated, 'We might just as well have searched a painted ship on a painted ocean for sight of
the vanished crew.' Many versions stop at this point, but several continue on, giving the full story of the Carroll A. Deering, or as much as could be.

learned.*
The Carroll A. Deering, a five-masted schooner, went aground off Diamond Shoals Sunday night, according to advices from coast guard stations of that vicin ity. The derelict

Virginian-Pilot, Tuesday, February 11 1921, p. 3:

was sighted today, and lifeboats ... were manned to go to the assistance of the stranded craft. A heavy sea was beating over the shoals, making the undertaking of the surfmen extremely hazardous. They arrived
Deering.

* Some of the past writers

have erroneously called the schooner the Carol

69

within 400 yards of the schooner that the vessel had been stripped there were no signs of life aboard.

close enough to observe of her lifeboats and that

Deering .... She was boarded ... and a casual inspection of the schooner convinced them that she could not be saved. Her seams had been ripped open by the constant playing of the waves, and her hold had been weakened beyond hope of repair by the disintegrating processes of the water .... When she started on her South American trip last September she was in command ,of Captain Merritt, one of her owners, the other owner being G. G. Deering. after [whose son] the .bcat was named. A few days out and Captain Merritt was taken ill and was forced to put back .... Captain Wormwell~ a [66-year-old] veteran of the sea, but who had retired three years previously. was sent to take command. He made the trip down successfully and got back as far as Diamond Shoals. as far as present information is indicative, before meeting with a mishap. How the ship happened to be abandoned. with all sails set and with apparently no damage to her, is still as much' of a mystery as ever. No word has been received from Captain Wormwell or anv other member of his Mutiny has been suggested as one reason for the ship's strange plight. but it has been discounted very largely even as a conjecture. The beach where the ship came to grief has long been known as 'the graveyard of seamen', and it is thought by some that an ugly squall came up when the Deering reached a point off there, but the crew,· knowing by tradition the dangerous situation in which they found themselves, became panic-stricken and attempted to make for shore in life-boats. The theory is that either the lifeboats in which they set out were upset by the gale, which was known to' be raging, or that they were picked up by [another] ship ..•.

Virginian-Pilot, Saturday, February 5, 1921, p. 4: Last night it became definitely known that the schooner which was abandoned with all sails set ... was the Carroll A.

crew.

conspiracy,

No new developments occurred and the derelict and its crew faded from the news, onJy to return several months later as the main element in an incident with overtones of an international
•

New York Times, June 21. 1921, p. 1 : The crew of an American ship is missing. and what seems to
be conclusive evidence has been obtained that the men were taken as prisoner to another- vessel and carried away to parts

70

The United States Government has undertaken to solve these mysteries of the sea, wh ich, in the opinion of officials today, point either to old-time piratical methods off the Atlantic Coast or the seizure of the vessels for the benefit of Soviet Russia. Officials concede that it is difficult to believe that acts of piracy could be committed in and near the territorial waters of the United States in this day, but the evidence is such that they are unable to escape the suspicion .... The State Department. . . . the Treasury Department. through its Coast Guard, ... the Navy, : .. the Department of Commerce, ... [and] the Department of Justice ... [are] working on, the theory that all these mysterious incidents are interrelated, Several months ago the five-masted schooner Carol Deering [sic] of Portland. Me.. was found abandoned off Diamond Shoals, North Carolina, with all sails set and her officers and crew missing. ... Evidence indicated that she had been abandoned in a hurry for no conceivable reason, for the vessel was in good shape, with plentv of food'. In fact, it was apparent that she had been abandoned when a meal was about to be served. Her small boats were gone, however. A little later a bottle came ashore near where the ship was found, and in it was a note ... which read as follows : 'An oil-burning tanker or submarine has boarded us and placed our crew in irons. Get word to headquarters of com, pany at once. The crew of the Deering, including the Captain, numbered twelve men, and not a trace of them has been discovered ..... The writi ng feu nd in the bottl e has been compared with the penmanship of her missing mate, and handwriting experts have declared that there is no question that the mate wrote the The steel steamer Hewitt of Portland, Me ..•. is also missing. · · . She might have been off Diamond Shoals about the time the Deering went ashore, and the authorities believe that she is still afloat, intact. At the Department of Commerce today the statement was made that two other American steamers had disaopeared under circumstances that led officials .... to believe that they had not foundered, and it was openly admitted that they suspected that the ships had been the victims of pirates [or] Soviet

vessel.

A second American ship is long overdue, and two other American ships are unaccounted for under circumstances that lead to the belief that their disappearance is in some way connected with the captureof the crew of the first-mentioned

unknown. if they were not murdered.

message.

71

sympathizers .... The names of these vessels could not be ascertained, and officials were extremely hazy as to details of their disappearance.

the list of those ... more or less related to the supposed kidnapping of the crew of the American schooner Carroll A. Deering .... It is not asserted that all the missing vessels were the victims of pirates or possibly Bolshevist sympathizers ... but the fact that all these vessels disappeared at about the same time, and that none of them left a trace is considered Ordinarily ships that disappear leave some trace either in the way of boats. wreckage or dead bodies. but it is said that none of the ships added to the list today left any trace whatever .... For some reason the Department of Commerce officials were unable to identify the two other vesse1s whose disappearance excited suspicion .... The State Department ... instructed consular officials of the United States at ports in various parts of the world to keep a lookout for the Deering's missing crew and a mysterious vessel on which they were supposed to have been made prisoner ...• The department's statement throws suspicion on the conduct of a steamer which passed the Cape Lookout lightship soon

New York Times. June 22, 1921, p. 1 : The names of three other vessels which have disappeared off the Atlantic coast of the United States in mysterious circumstances were added by the Department of Commerce today to

significant. ...

after the Deering. . .. , ... On Jan. 29,1921,

that there is every suspicion of foul play having occurred .... • ... A man on board other than the Captain hailed the lightship and reported that the vessel had lost both anchors and asked to be reported to his owners. Otherwise the Deering appeared to be in very good condition. A short time [later] a steamer. the name of which cannot be ascertained ... was asked to stop and take a message for forwardinq. and, in spite of numerous attempts on the part of the master of the lightship

the ... Carroll A. Deering ... passed Cape lookout lightship. North Carolina, and on Jan. 31, 1921. it was found a few miles north of that point in such condition

to attact the vessel's attention. no response to his efforts was received.'

Senator Hale of Maine. who first asked for a Government investigation of the disappearance of the Hewitt and of the Deering's crew, advanced today the theory that mutiny and not piracy was the explanation of the sea mysteries ....

New York Times. June 22. 1921. p. 10:

·1think it will be found to be a plain case of mutiny in at least

72

one of the cases: said Senator Hale. 'Possibly the mutinous crew of one vessel boarded the other to get a navigator:

New York Times, June 22, 1921. p. 10: It was the courace. persistency and detective skill of' Mrs W. B. Wormwell, wife of the Captain of the schooner Carroll A.
Deering ... which resulted in the evidence being gathered that has convinced the authorities at Washington that the schooner had been raided by Reds or pirates. . . . Facing skepticism. and at times ridicule, this New England seaman's wife ... obtained samples of the handwriting of the members of the Deering's crew and convinced herself that the note [in the bottle] was written by the engineer. Henry Bates. .. To establish this she obtained ... samples of [his] handwriting, and submitted those. with the note found in the bottle ... to three handwriting experts, all of whom agreed that the writing was identical. [Mrs. Wormwell] said tonight that, in her opinion. Bates. who was the most intelligent member of her husband's crew wrote the note in his engine room, where he had the paper and the bottle.
a

The New York Police Department revealed on June 23 that a year before they had discovered that the United Russian Workers of the United States and Canada had made plans for members to seek employment on steamers, mutiny if possible, and sail the ships to Soviet ports. It was recalled that several vessels about that time had had trouble with their crews, and that the William O'Brien, which had to put back to port because of a troublesome crew, sailed the next day and was never seen again. Despite the views of the various departments of the government, the New York police, and Captain Wormwell's wife, the piracy theory began to meet criticism. The most telling objections came from another department of the United States government.

theory that some of the dozen or more ships reported to have disappeared mysteriously in the North Atlantic may have been lost in the series of unusually severe storms which are known to have swept that area in the first weeks of February. 1921. Records ... show that a storm. accompanied by winds of up to 90 miles an hour, swept the North Atlantic lanes about Feb. 6, covering a section measuring 1.000 miles in length. This storm continued three days. Again on February 15, a

New York Times, June 24, 1921. p. 2: Weather Bureau officials came forward toniqht with the

73

storm suddenly arose in mid ... ocean and raged for 72 hours. The disappearance of the entire crew of the schooner Carroll A. Deering ... might be explained by the theory that they attempted to leave her in their boats and were lost. . ~. . . . A number of ships ... passed through some of the February storms and reached port only after sustaining damage.

Insurance underwriters suggested still another theory. Although the shipping business was then in a slump and owners were suffering tremendous losses, many continued their insurance policies at artificially high rates. Insurance men called the situation a 'moral risk' time and found that the number of sinkings began to increase. An editor of Lloyd's List derided the bottle message, saying that many years' experience had shown that such missives were almost invariably frivolous. Another Lloyd's spokesman said that the weather in the area had been extremely severe at the time, and also that pirates would not have needed the lifeboats which were miss.. ing from the Deering. Lloyd's also suggested that the Deering crew, after abandoning ship, may have been picked up by the Hewitt, which later went down with all hands. When the severe Atlantic weather was considered, Lloyd's said, the number of vessels reported missing was not exceptional. · By July the piracy 'hysteria', as it was then being called, had died down, and the simpler theory of the Weather Bureau prevailed. The final blow came when it was announced that the bottle message was a fake. Christopher Columbus Gray, the man who had reported the discovery of the bottle, admitted that the note which had started the piracy turmoil had not come from the Deering, but from fishermen on the North Carolina coast. For most of the world, the controversy and the mystery had ended, but for those who pursued the story of the Carroll A. Deering still further, it was just beginning to get interesting. * It was learned that Captain Wonnwell had confided to a friend that both the mate and the second mate were worthless, and that the crew was drunken and unruly. On the return trip the mate had been jailed in Barbados, but the captain had managed to have him released in time to leave for home. On Saturday, January 29, the schooner was sighted off Cape Lookout, North Carolina. A number of the crewmen were con• See Edward Rowe Snow's Mysteries and Adventures Along the Atlantic Coast.

74

gregated on the quarterdeck, which was normally reserved for officers, and a red-headed sailor with a foreign accent shouted to the crew of the Lookout Shoals Lightship that both anchors had been lost in a recent gale, and that they wou1d like it reported ashore. The radio in the lightship was out of order, but when the men tried to pass the message on to the next vessel, a steamship, their attempts to hail that vessel were ignored. The mystery steamship, as it came to be knOWD, has led to many questions. It was never determined what ship it was, or why it ignored repeated signals from the lightship. Some felt that it may have been a pirate ship or a rumrunner, and others claimed it was the Hewitt. Some versions have it that a tarp was draped over the side of the ship, covering the name. Two mornings later the Deering was found abandoned about fifty miles to the north, its lifeboats gone, sails set, and an evening meal on the stove. Two cats were still aboard. Most of the luggage and clothing was missing, as were the captain's large trunk, grip, and canvas bag. Had he abandoned the ship in an emergency, he would not have taken these heavy objects. A navigation chart on the table appeared to have been marked by Captain Wonnwell to a certain point, after which the writing changed. Several pairs of rubber boots were found in the cabin, -indicating that other men had been there, and it appeared that someone had been sleeping in the cabin's spare room. Many questions still remain in the mystery of the Ghostship of Diamond Shoals. Were the members of the crew involved in a mutiny, or in murder? Were they unruly and drunken, or have stories grown after the fact, based on a few isolated episodes? Why was the crew on the quarterdeck, an unusual place to congregate, and why did someone other than the captain send the message to the lightship? Was the captain i11at the time? Was he on the ship? Why didn't the crew say anything about the captain if he was sick or gone? H he was all right, why wasn't he there? Why had someone else been marking the chart in the captain's

room?

Despite the apparently bogus bottle message, could pirates or rumrunners have been responsible for the disappearance of the crew? Did government officials, wishing to avoid an international incident, coerce Gray into falsely admitting a hoax? Was the mystery steamer the Hewitt? Did the steamer and the schooner meet somewhere between Cape Lookout and Diamond Shoals? Was there collusion between the two crews 7 Was a sick 75

Captain Wormwell transferred to another ship, which later foundered? What took place on the Carroll A ..Deering between the time it passed Cape Lookout and when it was found, stranded and empty, several mornings later? Could it have happened as the Coast Guard assumed, that the captain and crew abandoned what they felt was a doomed ship, only to be lost at sea in their lifeboats? The story of the Carroll A. Deering is unique in maritime history, and it can truly be said that the more that is learned about it, the more mysterious it becomes. As for the schooner itself, it was declared to be an unsalvageable menace to navigation and was dynamited several weeks after the stranding .. The stern section was never seen again, but the bow washed ashore on Ocracoke Island the following summer. It remained there until 1955, when hurricane lone, which played another role in the Legend of the Bermuda Triangle, swept it back to sea.. Remnants later washed ashore and may still be seen in various shops in Hatteras as tourist attractions. The bell and lights from the vessel were returned to Bath, Maine, where they were kept by the town's most famous resident, Carroll A. Deering.

76

13

April 1925
_ d• V
d ....

111......

zI

l1li F

..............

_,

Raifuku M aru
,Jt' s like a dagger! Come quick,' the frantic voice pleaded over the

wireless. 'Please come, we cannot escape.' Then the cries from the Raifuku Maru* jaded away into the stillness of the tranquil sea. Other ships in the Bermuda Triangle were puzzled as to why a ship would send such a message on so calm a day. Nothing has ever been heard or seen of the freighter or its crew since that April morning in 1925.

Dictionary of Disasters at Sea During the Age of Steam:t The Japanese steamship Raifuku Maru left Boston on April tstn. 1925, for Hamburg with a cargo of wheat. Shortly after

leaving port the steamship encountered very heavy weather and by the morning of the 19th was in distress. An S.O.S. call was sent out which was picked up by the White Star liner

Homeric. 34.356 tons, Capt. Roberts, 70 miles distant. Shortly afterwards another message was received stating that all lifeboats had been smashed. A last message in broken English, 'Now very danger. Come quick,' came just before the Homeric sighted the derelict. The liner drove through the

mountainous seas at a speed of 20 knots to the spot indicated. tat. 41° 43'N .. long. 61° 39W. [400 miles directly east of Boston, and 700 miles north of Bermuda], to find the Raifuku Maru with a list of 30 degrees and quite unmanageable. Approaching as near as she dared the liner stood by in the hope of picking up survivors. but none could survive in such a sea, and all 48 of the crew.were drowned.
ship's name is usually misspelled Raiuike Maru in the Legend. t Charles Hocking compiled his Dictionary of Disasters ... from the files of Lloyd's Register of Shipping, London, which published the book.

* The

77

/'
· ,.,- /

\....--+-....... ~ ............ Bermud

,.•

The Raifuku Maru

78

14

December 1925

Cotopaxi
In 1925 the cargo ship Cotopaxi disappeared on a voyage from Charleston to Havana.
Although the Cotopaxi is frequently mentioned in the Legend, no information other than its route and the year it vanished has ever been gi yen. Lloyd's Weekly Casualty Reports .. December 11, 1925, p. 355, Overdue Vessels: COTOPAXI. Jacksonville. Dec. 1. Steamer Cotopaxi, which left Charleston on Nov. 29 tor Havana, with coal, reported to-day that she had water in the hold and was listing badly, but did not send out a distress call. Lloyd's Weekly Casualty Reports. December 18. 1925, p, 396. Overdue Vessels: COTOPAXI. London. Dec. 9. The following information, dated Dec. B. has been received: Radio efforts [to] locate steamer Cotopaxi and [the] cutter search [are] unavailing. · Lloyd's Register. Wreck Returns. 1925-1926: Cotopaxi, 2351 gross tons, U.S. Registry.

Charleston. S.C. to Havana. Cargo: coal. Left Charleston November 29, 1925. In wireless communication December 1 and not since heard of.

Steel, screw.

The dates in the information from Lloyd's provide a clue to the reasons for the ship's troubles.
New York Times. December 2, 1925, p. 17:
JAC KSO NVI LLE, FLA .. Dec. 1 (AP). While the west coast [of Florida] was still in the grip of a receding storm tonight. on

79

the east coast storm warnings had been hauled down and the work of repairing the damage was started ....
The tempest temporarily paralyzed tropical shipping. but only one ship sent out a call for assistance. The Munson steamer Red Bird, bound for Havana, ran into trouble in the high seas ... and dropped anchor to await an opportunity to enter Miami's harbor. Three planes were swept out to sea at Daytona Beach but no one was injured in the mishap .... The storm was described by Weather Bureau observers as 'phenomenal'.

By the next day the gale, which caused heavy damage along the southern Atlantic seaboard, swept into New York with a velocity that at times reached 65 miles an hour. / Although the Cotopaxi was not mentioned in the newspapers, it was at sea in the path of the gale that forced many ships to seek refuge and caused massive damage to harbors and cities. ,
•

80

15

March 1926

Suduffco
The freighter Suduffco sailed south from New Jersey and vanished

in the Bermuda Triangle. At the end of a lengthy search a company officer said that the ship might as well have been swallowed by a giant sea monster.
Like the Cotopaxi, the Suduffco is usually included in the Legend of the Bermuda Triangle, but details are seldom given . New York Times, April 8~ 1926, p. 2: The Transmarine Corporation of Port Newark" N.J., announced yesterday that it had. requested the Navy Department to search for its freighter Suduffco. Officials of the com .. pany fear for the safety of the freighter. The Suduffco sailed from Port Newark for Los Angeles on March 13. She carried a crew of twenty-nine and a mixed cargo of 4,000 tons, including a large shipment of steel pipe. She was due at the Panama Canal on March 22 or 23, but since she sailed no word has been heard from her. The Suduffco was proceeding down the coast at a time when the coast was swept by storms. Despite a month-long search, no trace of the Suduffco was ever found. The captain of the Cunard liner Aquitania, which was approaching New York as the Suduffco was leaving, reported that the voyage had been made in the 'worst seas I have ever known,' and that gales like tropical cyclones had held the ship back.
•

..

81

16

October 1931 __ ..._,.,._------------- ...........--------- -----.

Stavenger
In October 1931 the Stavenger, a Norwegian vessel with forty-three on board, vanished near Cat Island in the Bahamas.

not likely to be overlooked, yet the best sources of shipping information are not able to verify the disappearance. There was no inforrnation on the Stavenger in the New York Times, the London Times, or Hocking's Dictionary of' Disasters at Sea. Lloyd's has no information on it, nor was there anything in the Nassau Guardian. In response to a query from me, the Norwegian Maritime Museum in Oslo wrote:
IS

The Ioss of a ship with forty-three men on board

As to the disappearance of 'a Norwegian ship named Stavenger (Stavanger?) * no traces have been found in the official list of Norwegian ships lost at sea 1931. We have also checked the weekly lists of movements of Norwegian vessels October and November 1931 without result. ~~~ Of the ships named Stavanger and registered in The Norwegian Veritas 1 931, ... none ... are struck off the list in 1 932 or 1933. It seems there must be a mistake some place, either of the name or the year.

The Norwegian Director General of Shipping and Navigation also responded:

name of the ship is apparently slightly misspelled in the Legend, although the minor variation would make no difference in finding information on it. One of Norway's largest cities is Stavanger.

* The

82

We regret not to be able to find any ship with that name .. " . The only ship with a similar name - SIS Stavanger with signal letters LOT N - was registered in 1925. As this ship - however - was totally wrecked in 1957 it cannot be the same ship.

There were several weather disturbances in the Bahamas at the time: The Nassau Guardian of October 14 told of a 'tropical disturbance of small diameter and moderate intensity " " ..about 100 miles east or east-southeast of Nassau" " " accompanied by a very strong wind" .. [of] forty miles an hour.' Cat Island is approximately 125 miles east-southeast of Nassau. On October 21 the Guardian reported 'a distinctly rising wind that was blowing quite a gale. ' It could be that a ship named Stavanger encountered problems during one of these disturbances and that incomplete reports or incomplete research led later writers to assume that it had sunk. It does Dot appear that a ship named either Stavenger or Slavanger sank anywhere during the early 1930s.

...

17
..

April 1932

John and Mary

In April 1932 the Greek schooner Embircos found the two-masted John and Mary, ofNew York registry, abandonedfifty miles south of' Bermuda.
New York Maritime Register, March 9. 1 932, p, 15: John & Mary (Fishing schooner). Motor [vessel] Tide Water Associated which left NY March 6 for Las Piedras [Venezuela] picked up the crew of schr. John and Mary of New York in lat. 38 58 N, Ion. 69 50 W [point A on map]. *

West Quechee reports by radio that on April 16, while in lat. 31 29, Ion. 63 29 [point C on map]_ boarded the John & Mary, auxiliary two-master schr of New York, which was abandoned on March 8 [at point A on map] ; the derelict's hull was tound in good condition but engine was damaged by
[steamer]
explosion.

New York Maritime Register. April 27. 1932, p. 9 : John & Mary (Br aux sc) - New York. Apr. 19. - Stmr

An exp1osion in the engine or engine room caused the abandon .. ment 600 miles northwest of Bermuda and 270 miles east of Cape May, New Jersey. Thirty-nine days later, when the vessel was sighted by the West Quechee, it had drifted to a position approxi .. mately 100 miles southeast of Bermuda, an example of how derelicts can drift toward the Bermuda Triangle from other areas. I was not able to find any information about the discovery of the John and Mary by the Embircos, which supposedly took place fifty miles south of Bermuda (point B on map).
least one previous account reported the rescue but erroneously called the vessel the Tidewater and gave the position as 36°58'N, 69°50'W, which is approximately 150 miles south of the correct position.

* At

84

..

,
•\
•

..

• •

••

The John and Mary. A,abandoned March 8 ; B, sighted bytheEmhircos?;

C, boarded by the West Quechee.

Although it is not stated in the Maritime Register, it appears that the West· Quechee towed the derelict to port for repairs. According to Merchant Vessels 0/ the United States, the John and Mary then foundered off Cape May on July 9 of the same year. AIl six persons on board were rescued. .

85

18

August 1935

La Dahama
A ghost ship haunted the sea near Bermuda in 1935. The La Dahama, masts trailing overboad and skylights smashed, rested on the gentle swells as the men of the Aztec boarded and inspected her. There seemed to be no reason for her abandonment, as plenty offood and water was on board, and both lifeboats were intact. Taking charge of the captain's log, the men returned to the Aztec and sai led Oil to England, where they related the mystery of the derelict. To their amazement, they learned that the Rex, an Italian liner, had rescued the crew o/La Dahama several days before the Aztec had discovered her, and then all on board the Rex had watched the La Dahama plunge into the sea! It was a ghost ship that the Aztec had found, risen from Q watery grave.
New York Times, August 28, 1935, p. 1 : The rescue of the crew of five men from the sinking auxiliarv schooner yacht La Dahama of Philadelphia by the Italian liner

Rex was told yesterday in a radio message from Staff Captain Alberto Ottino .... 'Noon today, Lat. 37.57 N.. long. 51.55 W., we metAmerican yacht La Dahama of Philadelphia, sixteen tons, ownership Welsh, flying distress signal with five men aboard. Crew taken off. Yacht abandoned in sinking condition' because of water seeping through.' (Signed) 'Ottine.' · The position given approximately is 1.037 miles southeast of the Ambrose channel lightship and right· on the track of vessels bound from New York for the Mediterranean.

NeVI! York Times, August 30. 1935. p. 19 : Five men who were rescued last Tuesday from the founder86

ing schooner La Dahama of Philadelphia, were landed in New York yesterday by the Italian liner Rex, which made the rescue. All of the men were in good health and not affected by the five-day storm which gradually tore the sixteen-ton vessel to pieces. flooding her and preventing the men on board from

..

Azores

•." •

X La Oaharna

••

The La Dahama

..

sleeping or eating anything except canned fruit and other cold stores. The men were Albert R. G. Welsh, Philadelphia sportsman and owner of La Dahama; Captain Lars M. Larsen, master; and three seamen ...• When the Rex sighted the schooner's distress signals flying 87

shortly before noon on Tuesday the sea was calm and the schooner was not in immediate danger, although Captain Larsen said she would not have survived another blow. If the Rex had not come along the schooner would have gone down in another two days. and the five men, exhausted by constant manning the pumps and inadequate food. would have had to put out in a small dinghy .... On Aug. 18 they cleared Bermuda and had several days of fairly good sailing. Then they ran into a violent storm from the south-west. The wind ripped the foresail away. Then both masts went, and the ship was helpless as her auxiliary engine had already been disabled. Water seeped in rapidly for the next four days. Lookouts on the Rex sighted La Dahama before the weary men knew that rescue had arrived .... An eighteen-man crew put out in a motor lifeboat and took off the schooner's men, their personal effects, and as much of the vessel's navigating equipment as possible. The rescue took only 50 minutes.
London Times, September 10, 1935, p. 9:

RESCUE IN ATLANTIC MYSTERY OF ABANDONED YACHT SOLVED

While the captain and the chief officer of the Elders and Fyffe ship Aztec were relating at Avonmouth yesterday the discovery by them in the Atlantic of an abandoned yacht, information was received in London that the owner and a crew of five from the yacht had been picked up on August 27 by the Italian liner
a

Rex ...

On September 1 the abandoned yacht was discovered by the British ship Aztec about 700 miles north-east of Bermuda. She was boarded by a party from the Aztec, who found the two masts trailing overboard and the skylights smashed. There was plenty of food and water and both lifeboats were intact. but there was nothing to show when or how the crew had abandoned her. Captain Carden, of the British ship, took charge of the log-book, the 1ast entry in which was dated August 2~, reading, 'Wind south -east; carrying full sail: 8AM, passed British steamer Thurland Castle: The previous day'S entry recorded a split foresail.

The Rex discovered the schooner about 875 miles northeast of Bermuda. The Aztec found her five days later about 700 miles northeast of Bermuda. Neither location could be considered as being in the Bermuda Triangle, or even anywhere near it. The passengers on the Rex did not watch the yacht sink, they

88

boat would not float more than two days, but the water was so still that it 1asted at least five days, when it was discovered by the Aztec. It was not then a resurrected ship, but merely a derelict about to sink•
•
+

left it in a 'sinking condition' in a calm sea. The captain said the

...

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..

19

February 1940

Gloria Co/ita
The schooner Gloria Colita, of St Vincent, British West Indies, was found mysteriously abandoned 200 miles south 0/ Mobile in the Gulf

of Mexico. There was no apparent reason for the desertion as the seas were calm and everything was in order.

Times-Picayune (New Orleans), Monday, February 5, 1940. p. 1 : A 125-foot schooner, adrift, crippled, and unmanned in the Gulf of Mexico under unexplained circumstances, was taken in tow about 150 miles south of Mobile, Ala .. Sunday by the Coast Guard cutter. Cartigan. The. schooner, the Gloria Co/ita of St Vincent, British West Indies. had sailed from Mobile January 21 with a cargo of lumber for Guantanamo, Cuba, the Coast Guard said. * What befell the schooner and her crew since then remained just as much a mystery when the Canigan reached her at 9 :45 A.M. Sunday as when the derelict was first reported Saturday afternoon by a passing steamer ..•. The Canigan reported that the foresail on the Gloria Co/ita was still set but torn, that her other sails were down, the deck a mass of wreckage and the steering gear disabled ... ,. The Coast Guard said it was possible that the schooner had been buffeted by a storm, but could advance no explanation for the absence of the crew. Times-Picayune, Tuesday, February 6, 1940, p. 1 : Planes and ships of the Coast Guard searched a wide area
of this incident have misspelled the names of the boats' calling them the Gloria Co/ite and the Cardigan.

* Previous accounts

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during the day for the crew of the waterlogged mystery schooner Gloria Co/ita. but the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico Monday night still concealed the fate of the nine

men....

•
X Gloria CoIita

The GIorio

Co/ita

The Coast Guard, towing the Glorie Co/ita to Mobile. rePorted a skiff had been found upside down in the Gulf. but there Was no definite indication it had belonged to the ill-fated schooner.

91

With planes from its Biloxi station flying over the area by day and three ships. the Triton. Tampa, and Boutwell, searching the waters, the Coast Guard hoped to find survivors if they are adrift in a small boat or on wreckage in the Gulf. The chances, however, are slim that any are still alive .... Her rigging in tatters and her deck awash, the Co/ita was sighted Saturday afternoon by a passing vessel. ... There was no one aboard and the lifeboat was gone. Chief Boatswain Sven Halvorsen, commanding the Cartigan, radioed, 'From the general condition of the vessel. the deck cargo of lumber shifted and parted the main rigging,' he said. ..... 'The ship has taken a severe punishment:

Times-Picayune, Wednesday, February 7. 1940. p. 1 : The battered, unmanned schooner Gloria Co/ita. found in the Gulf of Mexico Saturday, was towed to port at Mobile, Ala., Tuesday night as officials planned a hearing for today to determine what befell ship and crew .... When the Gloria Co/ita sailed from Mobile she was laden with a cargo of lumber for Guantanamo, Cuba. For the next two davs. according to reports of the weather bureau in New Orleans. storm warnings were up in the area through which she should have sailed. The Coast Guard reported Tuesday night that the schooner's three masts were still standing when she was picked up, but that the rigging was in shreds and her rudder and steering apparatus shattered. The deck cargo of lumber was rnissinq. but that in the hold was intact. The hold was nearly filled with water, it was added, ... Tuesday ... Coast Guard boats scoured the Gulf in an area thought likely to yield some clue as to the fate of the missing crew. Times-Picayune, Thursday, February 8. 1940. p. 1 : MOBILE, ALA .. Feb. 7 [AP]. Captain Halvorsen discounted the belief that the hold of the schooner would be found to contain bodies of her crewmen. He expressed the opinion that 'they were swept overboard'. At the same time, the United States weather bureau here pointed out that its maps indicate a severe disturbance in the Gulf a few days after the Gloria left here on January 21. Storm warnings were ordered up on the 22nd from Port Eads. La., to Valparaiso, Fla., and on the 23rd another storm was located in the Gulf just south of Apalachicola. Fla. Times-Picayune. Sunday, February 11. 1940, p, 20: GULF PO RT. M IS.S., Feb. 1O. After sighting the vessel at daybreak. volunteers from the Cartigan boarded her. only to
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find that she had neither captain nor crew and that the lumber cargo on deck was swishing about with the swaying of the waterlogged derelict. ... Captain Halvorsen said he had no drowned durinq the storm of January 22 and 23.
'I

doubt that the vessel's crew was swept overboard and were
• 'IIIIIIII

...

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20

November, December 1941

Proteus, Nereus
The story 0/ the Cyclops continued many years later when two ofher sister ships vanished without a trace while on very nearly the same route as their older sister .. The Proteus left the Virgin Islands late in November 1941, followed several weeks later by the Nereus. Both were bound/or Norfolk. Had it not been/or Pearl Harbor, the

double disappearance would probably have been as big a story as the

few German vessels in the area at the time, and that none had reported having sunk any such ships.
The following information is from the Navy's Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships and Charles Hocking's Dictionary 0/ Disasters at Sea During- the Age of Steam. The Newport News Ship Building and Dry Dock Company began construction of the 522..foot colliers in 1911, and they were commissioned in 1913..They transported coal, oil, men, and stores to Navy ships until they were decommissioned in the early 1920s. Both remained inactive in Norfolk until they were struck from the Navy List in December 1940 and sold to Saguenay Terminals, Limited, of Ottawa, to be used for hauling bauxite from the Caribbean to the United States and Canada. Bauxite is the main source of aluminum, which is essential to the aircraft industry. The Proteus left St Thomas, Virgin Islands, on November 23, 1941, headed for Portland, Maine" It never arrived, and no trace 94

loss of the Cyclops a quarter ... century before. Although the United States was not then fighting Germany, a check ofnaval records after the war revealed that there were only a

u.s.

was ever found. Subsequent German reports show that it was probably a war casualty on November 25. The Nereus left St Thomas for the same destination on Dec .. ember 10, 1941, and also was lost without a trace. The Navy assumed that it had been torpedoed by a German U-boat.

.I

...

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21
•

October 1944

Rubicon
On October 22, 1944, a Navy blimp reported a derelict off the coast of 'Florida. Several hours later, two Coast Guard cutters were on the scene and found that the only living creature aboard was a dog. The ship, the Rubicon, was in excellent condition except for a missing lifeboat and a broken hawser hanging over the bow .. The personal effects of the crew were still on board and there was no clue as to why no one was on the ship. It appeared to be a case of a new Mary Celestejust off the Florida coast..
New York Times, October 23, 1944, p. 21 :

ONLY DOG

IS FOUND

ON A DRIFTING

SHIP

Cuban Cargo Craft Floating Off Florida. Recalls Story of the Marie Celeste [sic] HER LIFE BOATS ARE GONE
Vessel is Towed into Port - Some Think

Hurricane

May Have 'Carried Her to Sea '

M lAM I. Fla., Oct. 22 [U P]. A maritime mystery reminiscent of that which for a long time involved the Marie Celeste [sic] is recalled in the finding of a Cuban cargo ship adrift in the Gulf Stream with a dog the only living thing aboard. Possibly a victim of the Caribbean hurricane, the vessel was sighted yesterday by a Navy blimp which notified the Coast Guard here. Two boats were sent from Miami to investigate, .and found that she was the Rubicon, of about ninety grosS Her lifeboats were gone. but the personal effects of the creW were still aboard ..A broken hawser* was hanging over her bow-

tonsto

* A hawser is the rope or cable used to moor

a ship to the dock,

96

tlon6 . .

Early reports did not indicate whether the lifeboat moorings had been cut broken or slipped. The investigating boats reported by radio while towing the Rubicon . . . that she was apparently in excellent condi•
a

time. It was believed by some that any crew members stationed aboard had gone ashore when the hurricane winds hit Havana, leaving the dog, and that the ship's moorings gave way.

No indication of the fate of the vessel's crew was found in a study of the ship's fog. where the last entry was dated September 26, when she put into Havana Harbor. The Rubicon had apparently been trading along the Cuban coast before th at

Although the headlines and the first paragraph are attentiongrabbers, the remainder of the article, particularly the last paragraph, seems to clear up any mystery. There were no late.r articles to confirm or deny that the ship was set adrift by the hurricane. This lack of follow-up contributed somewhat to the Rubicon's being listed as a mystery.

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22

December 1945

Flight 19
At 2: 10 PM, December 5, 1945, five Avenger torpedo bombers roared down the runway of the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station and winged-their way into the greatest aviation mystery of all time, an event that was later to be called the Mary Celesteo/the sky, Flight 19 was scheduled/or a routine patrol-160 miles straight east, north 40 miles, then 120 miles directly back to base. Total time was estimated to be two hours. Avengers normally carried a crew of-three, counting the pilot, but one man failed to show that day. Perhaps it was coincidence, possibly it was due to a premonition, but in any case it saved his life ..The other fourteen crewmen were not to return. According to later testimony each plane had been carefully pre/lighted and held a full load of fuel. All equipment, engines, compasses, and instruments were in good working order. Extensive radio gear was in each plane, including ten communication channels . and homing devices which showed the heading to take to return to base. Each plane carried a self-inflating life raft and each man wore a

Mae West life jacket, The pilots and crewmen were all experienced.
The weather was excellent.

see land.' , What is your position ?., the tower asked.

'Control tower, this is an emergency,' the worried voice said. 'We seem to be off course. We cannot see land ••• repeat ..• we cannot
'We're not sure 0/ our position," replied the patrol leader. 'We

message.

The first message from the patrol came at 3:45, the time they were to have requested landing instructions. Instead, they sent a strange

can't be sure of where we are. We seem to he lost.' How could that be ? the tower operators asked each other. Flight conditions were ideal. ·

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